Yibbum
by Leah Naberrie
Summary: A/U BONKAI: Bonnie's father dies when she's ten and she leaves Mystic Falls in the custody of her mother to grow up in Portland, Oregon. She is promised to marriage to the heir of the Gemini Coven, but things never go as they planned, especially after Kai Parker escapes his Prison World. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Also: Liv, Luke, Katherine, Salvatore.
1. First Cut

**Quick author's note:**

 **I haven't published fanfiction in … in a while. So for me to be doing this, there has to be something really special about this pairing – Bonnie Bennett/Malakai Parker. I don't know what's going to happen in canon. I left that show after season 4 and never looked back. These two drew me in. But I don't care what's going to happen in canon. This is a story that I need to write. I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.**

* * *

 **1**

 **First Cut**

* * *

 **October 5, 2004**

From between the cage that was Elena's and Caroline's arms, Bonnie watched as the last of her bags were loaded into the car.

Caroline started sobbing afresh. "I don't want you to go, Bonnie! We promised we'd always stick together! We promised!"

Elena didn't speak, just clung fiercely and buried her face in Bonnie's back.

Bonnie was beyond tears, just held on mutely as she watched the tall, beautiful stranger – her mother – beckon her from the car.

"Say good bye to your friends now, sugar. It's time to go."

Bonnie tried to stand up and was yanked back down.

"No!" Elena shouted. "No!"

Abby's smile didn't waver but Bonnie could see the way her eyes narrowed impatiently. "Oh, you're all so precious. You can always come visit, my sweets. Bonnie's just moving to Portland, not England." She laughed a little, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Now, come on sweets, we have a plane to catch."

Bonnie made another half-hearted attempt to stand up again, and once again her friends held her down.

"OK, sugar, we'll do it your way then," Abby said with a little laugh. She grabbed Bonnie by the shoulders and pulled.

What ensued was a rather horrible scene where Bonnie was the middle of a tug of war between her mother and her two friends. Elena and Caroline clung to each leg, crying loudly as Abby dragged Bonnie like a dead weight to the car by her shoulders. She got the girl to the car, but she now faced the problem of extricating the other two who _simply refused to let go._ Abby wondered, horrified, how two little preteen girls could be so strong.

"Now girls," she said, her voice rising despite herself.

"Abby!" boomed a voice from the doorway.

Abby bit back an expletive and threw up her hands in exasperation as Bonnie suddenly gained the ability of self-motion, and wiggled out of hers and her friends's grip to run into Sheila Bennett's arms.

"I don't wanna, Gramps! I don't wanna go!" She wailed.

"Hush, child," murmured Sheila, lifting the girl into a hug.

"Please, Gramps, why can't I just stay with you? Why?"

"We've talked about this, my dear," Sheila said soothingly, rubbing Bonnie's back while glaring daggers over her shoulder at Abby Wilson. "Your mom will take very good care of you. I'll come visit you this Thanksgiving, OK?" She started walking slowly to the car with her eleven-year-old burden.

And that was how amid tears and drama, Bonnie Bennett left Mystic Falls in the back seat of her mother's rented car, with only a few clothes ( _you'll need different clothes in Portland, sugar_ ) and Miss Cuddles. The girl thought bitterly, as she listened to Abby from the front prattling on about the plane ride ( _how exciting, sugar, your first plane ride at 11!_ ) and the new friends she was going to make ( _twins, sugar, can you imagine!_ ) that she was never going to think to herself that she'd ever run out of tears again. She'd thought she would when her father died and she hadn't stopped crying for weeks. Then just when she dried out, this complete stranger had showed up for her father's funeral with lawyers and court officers and had taken her from Sheila, the only family she knew.

And even though Bonnie had cried and cried and begged and begged, _Sheila had let her go._

Sheila stood in the driveway, holding on to Elena and Caroline who wept bitterly against her dress, and waved at the departing car. Bonnie turned once to glare at her and then she never looked back.


	2. Awakening

**2**

 **Awakening**

* * *

 **May 10, 1994 / February 1 2013**

"I don't think I need a Bennett witch. I think all I need is … Bennett blood."

She couldn't take her eyes off the glint of the knife's blade.

She had been running for days, barely sleeping, barely eating. To be finally caught had been a relief.

There were worse things than death.

The last thing Bonnie saw was the face of the devil as it laughed at her.

* * *

Darkness.

Silence.

She dreamt of her dead father. He was waiting for her in a field of daisies. She loved daisies.

It was just a dream. Her father could not be on the Other Side. That was the only place left for her to go. If the ancestors didn't send her to Oblivion this time.

She would never see him again.

In her mind, Bonnie wept.

Her father left. He didn't wait for her.

She was alone again.

* * *

Darkness.

Silence.

No, not silence. Not alone. Something – someone was beside her.

The devil.

It was laughing.

"BonBon, we made it," she heard it whisper.

They did?

Not her. Not for long.

She closed her eyes and waited for the knife.

She felt the cold blade on her face, on her lips, then it was replaced by something softer, a warm pressure… and then…

Nothing.

Silence.

Had she finally died?

* * *

The never ending darkness. The never ending silence.

Hours passed. Or maybe days.

Voices came from far away and far above. They were indecipherable.

Bonnie just wanted to sleep.

Just wanted to sink. Just wanted to drown and never wake up.

But the voices were persistent and louder and louder and clearer and clearer. And soon, with the voices came light, at first faint and dim, like a slow sunrise… then brighter and brighter and with it came eyes… faces… familiar faces.

" _Bonnie! Bonnie!"_

"Liv?" she thought she said, but what came out was a croak.

" _She's trying to say something."_

" _Shh… stop crowding her."_

" _Bonnie… can you hear me? Do you understand me?"_

Bonnie groaned and closed her eyes back. Please let her die.

"Oh God, is she OK?"

"She's alive." A strangled laugh. "Oh my God, she's alive."

"Is it really, Bonnie?"

Bonnie groaned. "Shut up, Luke."

"Oh God!"

Then something was hanging around her neck, strangling her, and suffocating her under ropes of curly blonde hair.

"Get off me," Bonnie moaned.

The weight was pulled off and she heard someone –people – crying and laughing around her.

Somewhere in the middle of this, she slipped away.

* * *

It was dark again, but it wasn't silent. She could hear voices, familiar sounds.

And it was only dark because her eyes were closed. She opened them, and the light poured in, reflecting on the ceiling above her She swallowed against the growing lump in her throat. She knew that ceiling.

She knew the bed she was lying on, too. Her old bed in her old room. Everything was just as she remembered it… right down to the battered old Teddy lying on the lamp table by her bed. Bonnie reached for it, wincing at using long dormant muscles, and grabbed it. She wrapped her arms around it while the tears poured out freely.

The door opened and she jumped, instinctively grabbing the first weapon at hand – the lamp – and brandishing it before her.

Joshua Parker paused at the doorway.

"Bonnie," he said gently, raising an eyebrow.

Bonnie let out the breath she didn't realize she was holding and put down the lamp.

He stared at it gravely, then at her. "I was going to ask you how you were, and where you've been… but I have a feeling that I already know the answer."

"I'm good," Bonnie said, quietly. Untruthfully. But there was nothing wrong with her that would not heal with time. "And I was in the 1994 Prison World."

There was a chair beside the door. Joshua more fell than sat down heavily on it.

"A few weeks ago, we caught word that the vampire Katherine had been sighted somewhere in Virginia. I sent Luke and Liv to get hold of her. She had an interesting story to tell… I didn't want to believe it. But now, I know it's true."

At the mention of Katherine's name, Bonnie's hands balled into fists. "Where is she?" she hissed.

Joshua looked surprised at her anger. He would, Bonnie thought bitterly. Sweet little Bonnie rarely broke into a frown, and certainly never flew into a temper.

"We let her go," he said slowly. Bonnie gasped. "She co-operated with us. We had no reason to hold her."

"She…"

 _Slender hands on her neck, violence leashed and waiting to snap her into two._

 _"Now isn't this awkward, Kai? You have something of mine and I have something of yours…"_

 _Teeth sinking into her neck, tearing her._

 _"I will rip you up and send you to him in pieces."_

Bonnie choked back her words. "Never mind."

"And who else was in the Prison World with you and Katherine?"

Bonnie tensed. "No one else came with us."

"But someone was already there, wasn't he?"

Bonnie shuddered.

Joshua sighed. "Did he escape?"

Bonnie wrapped her arms around herself, stared at the mirror across the room. A scared little girl, mostly skin and bones and a shadow of her former self, stared back at her.

"Yes."


	3. Who Sticketh Closer

**3**

 **Who Sticketh Closer**

* * *

Caroline Forbes had had a bad day. Her professor had returned her essay with an A-. The same paper she had spent all Spring Break working on. Heads were going to roll.

Co-eds scurried out of her way as she barged through the dorm. She charged into her room, ready to kill anything or anyone that looked at her wrong.

Figuratively speaking, of course.

Bonnie Bennett was sitting on her bed.

Caroline gasped, then screamed, then sped so fast to her friend that she knocked her down.

Bonnie gasped.

"Bonnie! Oh my god, I'm sorry. Oh my god, Bonnie! Are you OK? I'm so sorry!"

Caroline got up quickly, her hands on her friend's shoulders, as tenderly as if she was holding a piece of glass. She touched Bonnie's face gently. "It's you? This isn't some kind of witchy trick, is it? Oh god, I can't bear it!"

Bonnie wrapped her hands over Caroline's and squeezed. "It's me, Care. It's really me."

"Oh god!" Caroline broke down. The two girls wrapped their arms around each other, hugging desperately. "I thought I'd never see you again. I thought you had gone, gone forever and it would have been all my fault. If it weren't for that stupid Cure."

"No, no, Care. It was never your fault. You didn't ask me to find the Cure. I was the one who wanted Expressions Magic…"

"You wanted the Magic to get the Cure, Bonnie! I know you. I figured it out. You knew how much I hated being a vampire. You wanted to save me. You're always saving me and I wasn't there for you. You're my oldest friend, my sister and I couldn't do anything but watch you die!"

And for some minutes, they couldn't do anything but cry and hold onto each other as if they'd never let go.

Much later, when Caroline had brewed tea and made sandwiches, and they were both tucked into Bonnie's bed with Sheila Bennett's thick quilt over them, Bonnie haltingly told Caroline her story.

When she finished, Caroline's face was like stone.

"That. Bitch. Of all the people to get stuck in a Prison World with."

Bonnie grimaced. "I suppose I should be thankful that I had a vampire with me. If not for Katherine's blood, I'd probably have died a long time ago. Or at least, have some gruesome scars." Absentmindedly, she touched the space between her rib cage where the last blade had passed through.

She still had nightmares about it.

Caroline lifted Bonnie's blouse, and stared at the smooth skin underneath. "I don't understand. If Katherine had gone… how did you get vamp blood to heal this?"

"K… He," Bonnie swallowed hard and Caroline squeezed her hand. "He kept some of Katherine's blood." Her lips twisted. "I think she was even more afraid of him than I was."

"And he's out … here?"

Bonnie grimaced.

"I won't let him hurt you," Caroline said fiercely. "Or any of them. Bonnie, you can't marry into that family now, you know that right?"

Bonnie glanced at her, then looked away.

"Oh you have to be kidding me!" Caroline screamed.

Bonnie flinched.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," Caroline said quickly. "I can only imagine…"

Bonnie clenches her fists together, forces herself to be calm. "I'm OK," she said at last, quietly.

Caroline sighed, and her head hit the headboard. "Bonnie, you can't do this. Luke is… a good guy, you know, even though he's gay and has no business marrying any woman. But the rest of the family … they're bad witches, Bonnie. They're creepy and manipulative and ruthless. The oldest sister, the one who ran off… _His_ twin, right?"

"Josette."

"Exactly. She took off first chance she got and never looked back. And she's their flesh and blood. Doesn't that tell you something?"

"You only mentioned Luke. I thought you liked Liv."

"The next time I see Liv Parker, I'm going to kill her."

Bonnie laughed, then she looked at Caroline's face and grabbed her friend's arm. "Care, no."

"It was her idea for you to get Expressions Magic. It was too dangerous for little Miss 'I've been casting spells since I was in my crib' Parker but she didn't mind it consuming you as long as she got what she wanted."

Bonnie looked away. "Liv was… she was desperate."

"Then she should have taken the risk herself." Caroline hissed.

"It was my ancestor's magic, not hers. If she could have, she would have done so."

"Do you really believe that, Bon?"

"I have to, don't I? We're going to be sisters, soon. And if she wins the Merge, we're probably going to bring up our kids together."

"This is crazy, Bonnie! Listen to yourself. Merging. Having kids for that creepy coven family. Marrying a man you aren't in love with. What happens if you have twins, Bonnie? You don't want this for yourself. You don't!"

"You don't understand, Care. It's been decided for me for as long as I can remember."

"Because Abby _stole_ you from Sheila, from us. She stole you and she sold you to them."

"Care-!"

"Yes! Yes! I've always wanted to say it and I'll do so now!" Caroline was shouting now and she could see Bonnie recoiling but she couldn't stop herself. "She didn't promise you to the Parkers so that they could protect _you_. She did it to protect _herself_."

"Caroline!"

"She wanted a coven that could fight for her when that Original that she pissed off came for revenge. She wanted allies and she bought them with you."

The curtains were flapping. A small wind was building in the room with closed windows.

Caroline was too enraged to heed. She had wanted to say this for a long time and now it was all coming out, she couldn't hold back.

"She abandoned you, Bonnie. You were three and she walked away and never came back. Until she found a use for you. She took you from everyone you loved and everyone that loved you and bound you to that sick, twisted, sadistic…"

"Caroline, stop!"

And Caroline was launched from the bed and flung across the room, hitting the far wall in a shattering of bones.

Bonnie was kneeling on the bed now, her hands balled into fists at her side.

For long minutes, the only noise in the room was the flapping curtains, the creak of the nailed down furniture as they groaned against the small whirlwind.

Then Bonnie collapsed back onto the bed and the current of air stopped.

Caroline groaned.

"Really, Bonnie?"

"You were being an ass."

She groaned again. "Maybe."

Beat. "I'm going through with the wedding, Caroline. I'm going to be a Parker, and a member of the Gemini coven. I don't expect you to understand or agree with me. But if you want us to remain friends, don't ever repeat those words to me."

"If you want us to remain friends, then don't expect me to lie to you."

Bonnie raised her head to glare at her. "You get one chance to speak your mind and you've used it. I don't need to hear this again."

Caroline frowned. "Fine," she said, grinding out the word.

There was a long silence.

"Am I still your maid of honour?"

"It depends. Are you ready to go shopping tomorrow?"

" _Tomorrow_?"

"The wedding is in two weeks."

"Two weeks! Are they-" Caroline literally clamped her jaw, checked herself. "Sure."

"Good."

"Good."

"You may need to compel a few professors for me. I missed the whole of last semester."

"Just say who and when."

"Good."

Caroline sighed. "Talking about compelling professors, I got an A- in Pol 251."

Bonnie gasped. "That's impossible."

"I know, right?" Caroline said and launched into the tirade that she had been reciting in her head earlier that day.

In minutes, she had crawled back into bed with her best friend. She was still talking when Bonnie fell asleep. When she realized this, she slipped out from the bed and carefully tucked the quilt around the smaller, more fragile girl.

For a moment, she just looked at Bonnie. At her small, delicate features, her less than fashionably skinny body. It was hard to believe that someone so small, so delicate looking was really so powerful. In her own way, Bonnie was more powerful than an army of vampires.

But all that power was sealed in a tiny, fragile vessel at the heart of which was a young, innocent, trusting girl who didn't deserve the shitty hand that life her dealt her – the car crash that took her dad's life, her mother uprooting her from Mystic Falls, the creepy coven that she was being married into, the gay husband that would never really love her, the Expressions magic that had nearly consumed her and the Cure that had turned her into an open-house supernatural target, the psychopathic bitch of a vampire that had followed her into the underworld and the psychopathic witch that she had met there.

Caroline shuddered. Bonnie Bennett had got rotten break after rotten break in life.

It was high time, Caroline Forbes decided, for someone to change her best friend's luck.

* * *

"What can I get you?"

It was Liv's last customer. A teen in dark slacks and a T-shirt. He was cute, if you like them tall, dark and somewhat creepy looking. Liv hoped he wasn't going to try and flirt with her. She had been in a rotten mood all day… all week… all month… maybe even half the year. Luke had covered for her from Joshua Parker but he knew the role she played in Bonnie's death.

(Ex-death).

The twins had been at the outs before but never like this. Never this long. It made Liv want to hex something.

The customer rambled on and on about his preferences. No bourbon. No tequila. No vodka.

All the other patrons had long gone.

Liv twirled her fingers and wandered if she could get away with hexing this one.

Just a little bitty hex.

He finally made up his mind. Liv barely heard his order, still considering whether or not he'd notice if he suddenly started walking into walls for a week.

"I'm going to need to see some ID," she said automatically.

"Sure." He said, giving her a wide and annoyingly cheesy grin.

She blinked at the card. 1972. Wow, they didn't even bother trying any more, did they?

"Get out of my bar," she said. _Before I hex you and get into even more trouble with my brother._ "We're closed now."

"Oh no, you didn't give it a good long look. See the name there… and the address…"

Liv was already mentally canting the hex when she glanced at the card again. Then her mind froze.

Bile rose in her throat and she stretched out her hand to curse at him.

He grabbed her palm and she fell to her knees as magic drained out of her body like blood from a gash.

"I'm hurt you didn't recognize me. No family pictures with me? No albums? Certainly no selfies, too old-school. I guess that's to be expected. I did kill and heavily maim most of our family."

" _Malakai._ "

" _Olivia_. I've missed you so much. You and I have a lot of catching up to do."

* * *

 **A/N:** Chapter title is part of **Proverbs 18:24 :** One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.


	4. Strange Bedfellows

**4**

 **Strange Bedfellows**

* * *

"Nothing? Really?"

"How many ways do you want me to say this, Kai? There's nothing I can use to find Jo. You think I haven't tried before to get hold of my big sister? You think our father hasn't tried?"

"Let me guess, she threw out all her stuff and burnt down her room."

They were in Liv's dorm room. Also known as the last place in the world she wanted a family reunion with her murderous oldest brother. But neither of them wanted to risk bumping into certain people. And where else could one discreetly perform a locator spell?

"Nearly. The whole house was scoured through with blood magic. You know, on account of the _massacre_ ," she snarked. Kai just stared at her blankly. "And she did some kind of cleansing spell on her things. There's no magical trace of her, Malakai. Not a shirt, not a brush, not a strand of hair. There's absolutely nothing anyone can use to track her down. Believe me, we tried for years before we gave up."

"Sissy got her magic back to do the spell?"

"No, she got old Sheila Bennett to do it."

Kai's fist, propping up his chin, wavered and his head thudded against the chair he was straddling. In seconds, he righted himself.

Liv stared.

"What?" he asked, and his voice was laced with menace.

Liv looked away, swallowing. "Josette walked away from our coven and never planned on coming back. If you can think of a way to track her down… be my guest."

He pursed his lips. Then he crumpled up the bag of chips he had been eating and stood up, tossing it into the trashbin and walked over to her. Liv skidded out of the way, giving him view of the table across which the map of the United States was spread. He stretched his hand to her, palm up, like a surgeon to a nurse.

"Knife."

She gave him the blade. He nicked his finger and shook it carefully until the drop landed on the map.

"Magic."

Liv recoiled. "Tell me the spell and then I'll do it."

"Not possible."

"Why?"

Kai heaved a longsuffering sigh. "Because you're an idiot. And because it's a spell that I made myself for the express purpose of using my blood to track, find and murder my dear twin sister."

"You're going to m-murder her?"

"Eventually. I believe the technical term is 'merge'. This is just a tracking spell." He waggled his fingers. "And you're wasting our time. You're not getting any younger standing there. Your twenty-second birthday is when? One month from now, right?"

Cursing silently, Liv stretched her hand out to him.

"Good girl," he cooed.

It never got easier. By the time he was done, she was on her knees on the floor, tears pouring out of her eyes.

"Did you need that much?" she gasped.

"When you start needing to reach out and touch someone every time you want to light a candle, let me know when enough is too much."

Liv cursed him in her mind then concentrated on getting enough strength to stand. After a while, she was able to hobble to the table, and peer at the map.

He was still chanting, his hands forming charm arcs over the table. The candle flames wavered in step with his words. Liv watched, fascinated, as the unfamiliar spell took shape. The drop of blood started travelling across the paper.

"We're going to need a bigger map of Virginia," he said, in between chants.

Liv printed one off as quickly as she could. Not quick enough for Kai who was glaring when she hobbled back. Still chanting, he snatched it from her hand and superimposed it over the map already on the table. The blood from the older map leeched through the paper and started travelling across the state.

The magical energy in the room was building. Goosebumps broke out across her skin. Kai's voice was getting louder and louder, and the flames of the candle were rising in tempo. A trickle of blood was pouring out of his nose.

And then abruptly it stopped. His hands went down and so did the flames.

Wordlessly, Liv handed him a tissue.

He grunted his thanks. She peered at the map.

"She's … here?" she asked, confused.

"Somewhere in Whitmore. Somewhere very close to Whitmore college, apparently."

He stepped back from the table and tossed the used tissue into the bin. Then he turned on Liv, grabbed her arm and twisted.

Liv fell to her knees with a scream. "What the Hell?"

"Sissy just happens to be in the same vicinity as your campus. You two aren't trying to play a fast one on me, are you, Livvie-poo?"

"No, Kai, I swear!"

"Because if you are," he twisted harder and she saw stars. "I will dismember you, piece by piece."

"I swear Kai! I want you to merge with Jo as much as you do!"

"Yeah, I heard. That's why I came to you. That's why you're still alive. But the thing is this… I don't believe anyone would pass up the chance at coven leadership. So you'd better spit out the true reason why you're helping me, Olivia or I might just kill you and make sure you're not going to be a problem."

"You don't believe me because you're a sick psychopath!" She spat, tears pouring freely now. "You can't imagine that I don't want to be responsible for my twin's death. Or die for the chance of being President of our creepy ass coven. I've been trying to get out of this merger for years now. Why the Hell do you think I got Bonnie Bennett to get Expression magic?"

He let her go – or rather, he shoved her off. She rolled to her side, favouring the arm that would be black and bruised by morning. Her whole body was shaking with sobs.

He stepped over her to the small mini-fridge.

"Gosh, I'm hungry," he said cheerfully, as he rummaged through her food. "I'm thinking two pizzas to start with, and then tomorrow, you're going to go grocery shopping. I can't live off this…" He shook a bottle of stale milk and tossed it into the bin. "Call the delivery guy and then come teach me how to use the Int-er-net."

"Y-you're st-staying here?" She sputtered.

Kai turned a big, bright, glaring smile at her. "I know. Isn't it exciting? It'll just be like old times."

* * *

A/N: Yes, I know it's short, barely worth the wait and I'm so sorry. But it's been so hard to write this chapter since I watched the finale. I've never been this badly affected by a show before. I mean, it just hit me that this chapter is about two people who have been killed by canon. And I still don't understand why. And it's not just Bonkai. It's the Parker family. It's the Gemini coven. It's all the rich wealth of myth-lore that could have been mined - heck, they could have made a spin off of the Parker family and Bonnie and it would have had enough to get three seasons of stories, at least. And it's all just gone to waste in one fell swoop and for what?

So, please if you're reading and enjoying this, can you just drop a few words? I am so discouraged right now. I'm almost ashamed at how personally I'm taking 6x22. I'd really love to hear from you guys. Bonkai forever!


	5. Of Feet and Fate

**5**

 **Of Feet and Fate**

* * *

 _Bonnie had been doing her nails herself for weeks. Katherine had offered but there was no way Bonnie was letting the vampire anywhere near her person if she could help it. Besides, she felt she was doing a good enough job. Caroline had never complained._

 _Kai didn't agree. She knew this because he said so loudly and often, while offering his services at the same time._

" _What do you know about manicures and pedicures?" Bonnie finally asked._

" _Sissy made me do hers every week since we were eight. Actually, I did hers and she did mine… Don't judge," he added when Bonnie burst out laughing. "That didn't last for long. The 'doing mine' part I mean. Meanwhile, I became something of an expert, if I say so myself. Younger sisters started recruiting my services. You can't believe how many chores you can trade away for an emergency filing."_

 _Bonnie had got mani-pedis from men. The first time Faye and Melissa had taken her to a DC salon, Bonnie had been skittish and disconcerted. But after a while, she had relaxed into it. It was no different from having your nails done by a woman. Some guys were better than others, some were more forgiving of calluses and old polish, some bossier about their choice of polish and nail art._

 _One day, after Kai kept a running commentary for three hours on the state of her toenails, she caved._

 _Almost immediately, she realized her mistake. But then it was too late._

* * *

In the few weeks after Bonnie came back, she had had a lot of intense discussions with Liv Porter. The older witch clearly felt extremely guilty over everything that happened and in her own blustery way, had tried to apologize for her role in Bonnie's suffering.

Bonnie had accepted the apology. But her relationship with Liv was strained now, in a way it hadn't been in a very long time.

And Bonnie wasn't sure she wanted to fix it.

She had always got along better with Luke than his sister. When she had first moved to Portland, and started going to the Parkers and learning Craft side by side with the twins, Liv seemed to develop an instant dislike to her. Later, Bonnie would discover that the twins had known about the engagement long before she was told. Status and circumstances had made the twins extremely close to each other. Liv saw Bonnie as a third wheel, a possible rival for her brother's time and attention. That Bonnie, despite knowing so little about magic, began to display more power and more natural ability than Liv, also rankled.

But as they grew into teenagers, they had come to appreciate having a girl to talk to and share experiences with, and had become friends. Liv still tended to show off her superior knowledge and was miffed when Bonnie mastered a spell faster than she did. But Bonnie believed that at the heart of things, they cared for each other and had each other's back.

It was a belief that had been tested and had failed.

So it was with an uncertain heart that Bonnie dialled Liv's number that morning.

It rang once and connected.

"Hi, Liv. Getting ready?" Caroline had managed to wangle an appointment at some exclusive nail salon for the bridal train that morning.

There was only silence at the line. Bonnie knew someone was there: she could hear breathing.

"Liv? Hello? Can you hear me?" She checked the phone, made sure she hadn't accidentally pressed the mute button.

She hadn't. There was still silence. Unnerving silence.

She swallowed.

 _Eight. Nine. Ten. She counted ten rings and was about to hang up on the call to Katherine's hotel room when it connected._

" _Katherine?"_

 _Silence on the other end._

" _Katherine? Did you get it?"_

 _Still silence._

 _Dread on her end._

" _K-Kai?"_

" _Clever girl."_

"Bonnie? Bonnie, are you there?"

Liv's urgent voice pulled her back to reality. "Yes, I'm here, Liv. Where were you? You were just silent on me."

"Sorry. I had to get the door." There were background noises of shuffling, the beep of a microwave. "What's up?"

Bonnie nodded to herself. Of course, that was all there was to it. What was she thinking?

"Mani-pedi is this morning."

"Wow, thanks for reminding me. I mean Caroline's already buzzed three times but it completely skipped my mind."

Bonnie bit her lip. "Caroline wrangled us a slot at Dupont. You know how hard it is to get a space there. We used the wedding option to get the appointment and we still had to book three months in advance. It's all so pretentious, if you ask me. We're still going to get our nails done all over again before the day. I mean, what's the big deal? I've seen the nails that come out of there. I've got better from other salons. I've even got better from-" She checked herself.

She was rambling. She could practically feel Liv's testiness. She took a deep breath and nerved herself to say what she really wanted to say.

"Anyway, maybe you should skip it, if you have other things to do?"

"I don't have other things to do."

"Oh. Er… You have a fitting for your bridemaid's gown-"

"It's at 11. It's exactly half an hour after the mani-pedi is over."

"Oh. Oh, yes it is."

"Caroline synced our calendars. I have appointments at the same time as everyone else. It's supposed to be a group event. What's the matter, Bonnie, you don't want me to come?" Her voice was hard.

Bonnie bristled. Usually, she put up with Liv's brashness. But not today. "Actually, Caroline doesn't want you to come. She said, and I quote, 'if I see Liv Parker, I will kill her.'"

There was silence at the other end of the line.

Bonnie immediately felt horrible. "Look… Liv."

"Fine. I'll go to the fitting by myself. I can do my nails myself anyway."

"Liv-"

"Is there anything else I'm uninvited to? I need to update my calendar."

"Liv-"

"Or should I just step off the bridal train completely while I'm at it? What do Meliisa and Faye think? Why do I ask? They hate me more than Caroline does."

"Caroline doesn't-"

"I'd love to stay and chat all morning with you, Bonnie but I have a dress fitting to reschedule. If there isn't anything else…"

Bonnie swallowed. "Liv, I'm sorry. I'll-"

"I guess not. A happy mani-pedi to you. Send the bitches my love."

The call ended.

Bonnie sighed.

* * *

 _He had large hands with long, slender fingers. She tried not to squirm when he held her ankle in the circle of his grip, tilting her foot this way and that. His face was bent over her leg, his brows furrowed in concentration._

 _There was something… disconcerting… about this._

 _Then he ran his palm down her sole, feeling for calluses._

 _She almost kicked him in the face._

" _I'm ticklish," she explained, burning face, pounding heart._

 _She was ticklish. And that was the only reason why her whole body had lit up like a match when he touched her._

 _That had to be the only reason._

" _You're ticklish?" He asked and his voice and face was pure unadulterated joy._

 _She knew for certain she had made a mistake._

 _Half an hour and one foot later – and was it just her or was he painstakingly slow – she was a right bundle of nerves._

" _Stop wriggling," Kai murmured, his hands steady as he carefully applied red polish on her toes._

" _I said pink," Bonnie said. It was the first time she had spoken since she said she was ticklish. She meant the words to come out matter-of-factly, maybe with a bite of irritation, and was shocked at the way her voice sounded, low, hoarse… turned on._

 _What had she been thinking agreeing to this?_

" _If you're going to be walking around here bare-feet, then I'm going to be looking at them all the time. Might as well have something worth looking at."_

" _I'm not doing my nails for your benefit!"_

" _Technically, I'm the one that's doing your nails," he said cheekily, glancing up at her from through impossible long lashes and winking._

 _She tried to yank back her foot and he just managed to grab the ankle in the nick of time. "There… there now. Don't be silly and ruin all my good work." He scolded, tucking her heel firmly between his thighs._

 _Not for the first time in her life, Bonnie was grateful for her complexion's inability to blush._

 _His hands were warm. His thighs… where her foot was half-buried were warm. The room was warm._

 _She was playing with fire._

 _She tried to take her foot again._

 _Kai ran a finger down her sole and she almost jumped out of the chair._

" _Stop it!" she shrieked._

" _Do that again and I'll pin you down on that sofa and tickle you mercilessly."_

 _A very explicit mental image of that scenario – herself pinned under his weight, wriggling helplessly, that focused determined look on his face as his hands ran all over her body – invaded her brain._

 _She stopped struggling at once._

* * *

"Bonnie, where's your head at? You're like a thousand miles away?"

Bonnie started.

Someone was carefully applying polish on her nails – pale pink, not red – but it was an older woman with small careful fingers. She wasn't reclining in the sofa of the Salvatore boarding house, but in the multi-functional armchair at Madam DuPont's Hair & Nail Spa.

Somewhere in the middle of their group mani-pedi, she had drifted off into memories.

Memories that she had no business reliving.

She turned to Melissa with a bright smile. "Sorry, I guess I slept off."

"Your eyes were wide open."

"It happens sometimes," Bonnie said, as casually as she could.

"Mmm.. hmm…" Melissa said, clearly not buying it. She seemed on the verge of saying more then she shifted her gaze to something above Bonnie's shoulder and backed down. "You can sleep all you need now. You have less than two weeks to get ready for this wedding. I have no idea how you intend to pull it off even with me and Faye flying in to help."

Bonnie had met Melissa and Faye during one of the Gemini coven gatherings shortly after she migrated to Portland. They had not perfectly filled the Caroline and Elena shaped holes in Bonnie's life… but they had carved out spaces for themselves in it. The coven elders had been quietly disapproving of Bonnie's choice to fill her bridal train – not with the daughters and wives of the coven elite – but with two witches from a backwater self-styled circle (not even a proper coven!) and a vampire. Liv's presence was already a given. It was one of the few times when Bonnie had not caved in to Joshua Parker and the other Gemini Elders, and insisted on her way.

She looked over her shoulder now, to see who – Faye or Caroline – had shut Melissa down. She caught the edge of Caroline's pointed glare and smiled her thanks.

Caroline didn't smile back. "Talking about all the help you need, where is your future sister-in-law? If she's not here in 15 minutes, she'll lose her slot. Madam Dupont is booked weeks in advance. She must know about today's appointment. I synced everyone's calendars and I sent hourly reminders."

"Trust me, Caroline, we got your reminders. All three of them," Faye grumbled from behind her magazine.

"So where is she?"

Bonnie shifted in her chair. She repeated her earlier conversation with Liv to the others. With some politically correct editing.

"You didn't have to do that, Bonnie," said Caroline, self-righteous hypocrisy oozing with every syllable. "I was just a little angry at the time. She's part of the train and she's welcome to do things with us. We're a team here."

"Oh please!" Bonnie retorted, eloquently.

Faye snorted. "Caroline, you're just worried that she'll bring us down on Bonnie's day. And you should be. Have you seen the bird's nest on that girl's head?"

"Faye!" Melissa hissed.

"What? I just said what we're all thinking."

Bonnie sighed. "Today's the first day and I needed to smooth the waters but I'm not leaving her out next time. I care about Liv, OK? And she cares about me. She made a mistake. Is there anyone in this room right now that hasn't done anything they regretted?"

Three pairs of eyes looked everywhere and anywhere but each other.

"No matter who wins the Merge, I'm going to be dealing with Liv one way or the other for the rest of my life."

"Wow, that isn't creepy at all," Faye murmured _sotto-voce_.

Bonnie pressed her hands to her temple "I need you guys to just … help me out, OK? Until the wedding, at least." She could hear her voice breaking but there was nothing she could do to stop it. "You have no idea the kind of pressure I'm under. Apparently, you literally can't wave a magic wand and have everybody forget that you're supposed to have died. I keep an affidavit in wallet that says I'm alive because every other day someone asks me for it. I'm constantly getting calls from some Warlock or the other asking for information about the Prison World and…" she swallowed. "The Prisoner. Luke and I are flying to Orlando for a meeting with some Elders who are too old to make the trip to the wedding but apparently need to bless us or something. And somehow I'm supposed to do all this and make out time to meet with the attorneys to discuss… " And to her horror, the tears starter pouring now. "…to discuss about my…"

Caroline was at her side in a heartbeat, her arms tight around her.

" _My… my grandmother's last will and testament_."

"Oh Bonnie, I'm so sorry," Melissa whispered.

"Why don't you just postpone the wedding?" Faye asked, shaking her head.

"I. Won't. Postpone. The. Wedding!" Bonnie screamed.

As one, the girls shrank back. Bonnie noted with some satisfaction that the good thing about being usually so easy going was that when you did lose your temper, it really got people's attention.

Then she noticed that the manicurists were still in the room, studiously working on their feet, and apparently oblivious to her recent rants.

"Silencing spell?" She asked Melissa, completely embarrased.

Faye rolled her eyes. "Smokescreen spell. Custom-made by yours truly. They think we're gossiping about your future mother-in-law."

Bonnie covered her face with her hands and sighed. "Look, I'm sorry I yelled. I'm just tired of having to explain myself every time. The Gemini coven needs this wedding to happen. And soon. _He_ 's out there, and he has a plan, OK? I don't know how much of what he told me was true, but if he's going to do half of what he claimed… then the coven needs every weapon they can use to fight the battle that is to come."

Except for Caroline, the other girls were all leaning forward to hear her. She didn't even realize that her voice had fallen to a whisper. It was a habit born out of the superstitious but very real fear she had that saying his name would summon him.

"Is that what you think of yourself, Bonnie? As a weapon?" Caroline's voice was sad.

Bonnie refused to let it get to her. "I was born into this incredible lineage. I have all this power. This was what I was meant to do. The Gemini coven are the good guys. I was destined to join my bloodline to theirs."

She didn't miss the way they shifty-eyed each other and she stared down each of them in turn, daring someone to say something.

Faye did not disappoint her. "I know you have this rule where your friends only get to give their opinion once, right?"

"Yes, I do," Bonnie said warily.

"So, you know I already said that I think that's a whole bunch of crap, right?"

" _Yes, I know._ "

"OK. Just checking."

* * *

 _It was a mistake. She wasn't trying to get her foot from him. It was just a spasm, a completely involuntary spasm._

 _At least, that's what she kept screaming as he attacked her, his fingers expertly and mercilessly searching and devastating every single ticklish zone on her body. She tried to kick him off, and they ended on the floor, him kneeling over her, and his hands still working her sides. She was laughing and screaming so hard that she was barely breathing._

" _Kai stop. Kai stop!" She managed between wracking giggles. "You're ruining my nails!"_

 _He was laughing as hard as she was. "I gave you fair warning. Naughty girl."_

 _The way he said the last two words made her shiver in an entirely different way._

 _Somewhere in her head, Bonnie's common sense was screaming at her to stop this._

 _She worked out her arms from under his, and tried to push him off. "Kai," she gasped. "Let me go."_

" _Mmm… let me think," he said, grinning. Then he grabbed both hands with one of his own and yanked it over her head, the other hand working towards her stomach. "No."_

" _Come on," she said and tried to kick him again._

 _His eyes glinted. "Oh no, you did not!" He pressed his whole length down on her, pinning her in place easily._

 _His whole long, hard length._

 _Hard, in every sense of the word._

 _They both froze at the same time._

 _He was so near her that she could count his lashes if she wanted to, his breath was fanning her face. She watched the apple in his throat bob. His eyes were dark, burning._

" _K-Kai," she whispered._

 _He groaned, and buried his face in her throat. She felt his hot breath on her skin, his lips a few inches from her cleavage. She squirmed and realized her mistake too late. His pelvis seemed to lock into hers._

 _Every nerve in her body was aching._

" _Kai," she said, almost a cry now._

" _My god, Bonnie," and he literally growled the words into her skin, making her bones vibrate._

 _"We can't-"_

 _"Do_ yo _u have any idea, how_ badly _I want you?" He was moving up the column of her throat, over her jaw, her chin… She felt the press of one kiss, then another, then another. He was lighting a trail of sparks on her and every one of them was igniting. "I dream about you. Like this. Being inside you. I think about you all. the. time. Bonnie, you_ haunt _me."_

 _Each word he spoke was like a cannon ball at her defences. He was so rarely serious, so rarely vulnerable. From the moment Katherine had told her point blank, Bonnie had seen it, seen his persistence, and she had been running, from it, from him. He had turned it into a joke that she pretended not to get the punch-line of, and they had been dancing around this for weeks._

 _Because she couldn't. One day, she'd get them all out of this place and she'd have to face the reality of her existence and this was not something that could ever happen to her. Not if she wanted any semblance of sanity or joy in her life._

 _She swallowed against the lump forming in her throat, desperately trying to control her treacherous body and stop this. "Kai," she started and then his lips swallowed the rest of her words._

 _That was the kiss that sealed her fate. After that, there was absolutely nothing she could have done to stop what was going to happen._

 _Some people went through their whole lives without knowing what they were born to do. And for a long time, Bonnie Bennett believed that she wasn't one of those unlucky people. Because she believed she had a purpose. She believed she had a destiny. She believed she knew why she was born._

 _Until that moment._

 _Because in that moment, in that kiss, she realized that she hadn't had a clue. Because now, she knew. Everything in her life, every decision she had made, every path she had chosen was pre-destined to lead her to this moment._

 _She was born to kiss Kai Parker._

 _She could feel the synapses in her brain breaking and making and making and breaking. Every bone in her body, every drop of blood was screaming one word._

Finally!

 _The part of her brain that could still function rationally was wondering why on Earth (or Hell) she had fought this for so long, drawn it out, tiptoed around it, side-tracked, dodged, hidden behind Katherine, circumvented… when it was clearly inevitable and if she had known this was how it was going to be, she would have kissed Kai Parker the moment she first laid eyes on him._

 _Their mouths slanted around each other, sucking, biting, licking, tongues twining and warring with each other, tasting places they probably hadn't known existed. One of his hands was in her hair, angling her face as he burrowed even deeper into her mouth. The other hand was running up and down her side in a jerky, desperate rhythm. She had a hand on his neck and the other arm across his shoulder, clinging for dear life because she was drowning and she was going to take him with her._

 _They were literally out of breath when they pulled apart and even then, his tongue kept flicking over her lips, as if he couldn't stop tasting her._

 _"Please don't make me stop," he whispered, his voice tortured, his body shuddering against hers in a way that was incredible and terrible at the same time._

 _"We're not stopping," she whispered back, almost like a warning. She barely recognised her own voice._

 _If a mere kiss could make her feel like this, then there was no force in the world that was going to stop this._

 _His eyes were shining, glowing as they searched through her face, as if he didn't quite believe her, as if he was searching for doubts._

 _She tightened her grip on his neck and pulled him down._

 _The time for doubts had passed._

* * *

A/N: Thank you so much for the outpouring of encouragement and support and commiseration! It's so wonderful just knowing that you know, we're not alone. We're not .. delusional. I'm not crazy for seeing something in this pairing that I believe was promised to us right from 6x2 when they met for the first time - and for feeling cheated that we never got that. So I'm going to keep pushing through this fic because even though it's AU, I want to keep it as real to what canon Bonkai ought to have been. Keep sending your vibes, guys. You're just wonderful.

A/N2: There's so much going on in this chapter that I have no idea what to call it. So please, dear reader, any suggestions?

A/N3: Faye and Melissa are from the Secret Circle (TV version, I think). Modified to fit my fic! I loved them (the show, not so much).


	6. Gambit

_A/N: A very special thank you to **JemiCloisFan** who beta'd this chapter. Thank you to everyone who offered ... all 2 of you. ;) Thank you all for your kind reviews and encouragement. They really mean a lot to me. Meanwhile, what do you think about Kat and Chris are doing conventions in Europe right now? The irrepressible fangirl in me is so thrilled! At the same time I'm dreading their panel on the 30th for some reason. I just wish sometimes that Bonkai gets zero media coverage and they just leave us to fangirl and fanwrite and fanvideo in peace, you know?_

* * *

 **6**

 **Gambit**

* * *

Kai had taken the bed. There hadn't been a discussion. He had just plopped himself on Liv's 1,000 count cotton sheets, complete with shoes and pizza box and made himself at home, firing questions at her between mouthful of pizza until he abruptly fell asleep.

Liv had stared at his unconscious body for half and hour and contemplated murder. It was only after she had fully convinced herself that he was more valuable to her alive than dead, that she finally gathered a blanket, the books she was going to pretend to study, and headed to the common room to crash.

She was lucky enough to bag a chair by the fireplace, and she even surprised herself by cracking open her Economics 301. Magical algorithms and fiscal formulas added up surprisingly lucrative spells for an enterprising witch. The three of them – she, Luke and Bonnie – had actually started working on a spell of this nature last year… then certain events had caught up on them.

Sometimes Liv wondered if the hope of escaping her destiny wasn't more of a curse than a blessing. The Merge Ceremony had loomed over her life for as long as she could remember. Indeed, she and Luke had probably understood their destiny long before their oldest brother realized he was being cheated of his. Liv had never been happy about it. But she had felt about it the way most people felt about death – it was horrible and it was inescapable. Her father had done it, and his mother before him, and _her_ grandfather before her. There was no other future for her or Luke. That was just the way things were. In Liv's own way, she accepted this.

Until the fateful day when the possibility had presented itself: The possibility that with enough power, power enough to create another world, she could break the Gemini curse and free herself from her doom… And then it became more than a possibility. It became a reality. The power existed. It could be found. It could be sourced.

It was that hope that had turned Olivia Parker into a different person. A person that was willing to forsake her destiny. A person that allied with vampires. That betrayed her people. That stained her hands with blood. That served up as a sacrifice the life, the very soul of a girl that had grown up with her as close as a sister.

" _It's our chance. A chance to live full, normal lives…"_

" _At what price? Bonnie's? Make no mistake, Liv, if she tries to wield Expression, it will consume her and she will die."_

" _She is a Bennett witch on both sides. If any one has any chance of harnessing Expression magic, it's her."_

" _Are you willing to take that chance? To risk Bonnie's life?"_

" _I'm not risking her life. She believes she has a chance. I have faith in her, unlike you."_

" _Don't you dare try to turn this around, Liv. Bonnie is doing this because you made her think she has to. She's doing this for you, for Caroline. You're. Using. Her."_

" _She's doing it for all of us, including herself. It's a risk but it's a risk that is worth taking—"_

" _Shut up, Olivia!" He never called her Olivia. "Are you even listening to yourself! Who are you? I don't know who you are anymore."_

Visions of Luke dying at her hands. Of herself dying at his. Of Bonnie falling, falling, falling into the waters of Nova Scotia. Of Malachai's blood-soaked shoes and the sound of his baseball bat scratching against the wooden floor…

Liv woke up to the sound of loud music and noisy co-eds. Her phone alarm was screaming above it all and she glared blearily at the three little digital bells on the screen.

 _9am Appointment at DuPont … Caroline Forbes._

She groaned.

Somehow, she managed to retrieve her lanky frame from the confines of the armchair. Feeling like she had spent the night under a moving train, she dragged her feet to her room.

Kai was awake. He had showered, shaved and changed clothes and was now seated her desk, logged into her laptop. He barely looked up as she approached him, his eyes flickering as rapidly as the screens he was calling up. He looked very much at home, and had clearly had a far better night than she did.

She slammed her books and her cell by his elbow, missing him as narrowly as she dared.

"Oops."

He did look at her then. He raised an eyebrow. "Well, look what the cat dragged in. Walk of shame, Livvie, really? Haven't you earned a drawer yet?"

Liv gaped. "What?"

"A drawer in _his_ dorm room? Or is it hers – or theirs? I'm totally open-minded about these things. As long as you practice safe -"

"I am not having this conversation with you!"

"Oh thank god. It's a bit too late in the day for me to play big brother. You are clearly out of control. Besides, while you were out doing god knows who, I've been up for hours checking the State population database for every single 39-41 year old white female with first name Josette, Jo, Josephine, Josie. Did you know that in 1972, Josie was number three on the list of most popular baby girl names in the State of Virgina? I have half a mind to round up all these women and kill them for wasting my time. On the other hand, I could be going about this all wrong. Maybe Sissy is going by Cecilia just to spite me."

"Yesterday, you didn't even know what Google was and now you're hacking into the State's database?" Liv was impressed despite herself.

"Amazing what you can learn when you actually apply yourself, right? In my time, going to college was more intellectual self-actualization, less orgies. Does the Great Coven leader even know you're shacking up in a co-ed dorm?"

"You're disgusting," Liv retorted. "For your information, I crashed-"

"Spare me the gory details!" He actually put his fingers in his ears. "The good thing is you're finally here and I'm starting to get hungry. Take my word for it, you do not want to see me hungry."

She stalked to the desk phone to call the delivery service. She was still on hold when she heard the buzzing of a vibrating cell phone. It was hers, on the desk besides Kai, flashing a close up of Bonnie Bennett's face.

Kai glanced at the phone by his elbow and froze. The half-irritated, half-irritating look on his face switched off as abruptly as if he had pulled a plug. He was, Liv noticed in surprise, literally paling; his face was bleaching of both color and expression.

In a movement that seemed more of a reflex than a conscious action, his fingers twitched at the screen.

And the call connected. He stood up so abruptly that his chair fell back.

"Liv?"

Bonnie's soft voice with that slightest of Southern drawls filled the room. The speaker had come on automatically.

"Hi, Liv. Getting ready?"

Liv would have picked up the phone, switched the speaker off, and continued the conversation in relative privacy but she was too fascinated by Kai's reaction.

He was still standing, his hands were clenched at his sides, and his knuckles were white. He was staring at the phone – at Bonnie's picture – so fixedly that he had literally stopped blinking. A muscle was pulling in his jaw.

"Can you hear me?" Bonnie sounded spooked.

Liv reached for the phone.

Kai grabbed her hand and slammed it flat on the table.

She glared at him and gasped. His face was so fixed in its blankness that it was almost inhuman.

" _She's going to hang up_ ," she mouthed.

The muscle in his jaw pulled again. Once. Twice. Then he pushed away from the desk, and turned his back on her, reaching the window on the other side of the room in rapid strides.

Liv switched off the speaker and put the phone to her ear. "Bonnie? Bonnie, are you there?"

"Yes, I'm here, Liv. Where were you? You were just silent on me."

"Sorry. I had to get the door." She answered distractedly.

Bonnie was going on and on about the pedicure appointment and Liv could barely get a word in edgewise. She was tense and nervous, wondering if Kai was going to do something to reveal his presence in her room and ultimately, Liv's own betrayal. There hadn't been time to discuss what role, if any, she was supposed to play for Bonnie – whether to stay close to her or avoid her completely. Liv preferred the latter. It would keep her hands a little less dirty.

She watched him anxiously as she muttered something noncommittal on the phone, waiting for some kind of cue, but he just remained by the window, his back pillar straight as he stared out at campus.

Gradually, some of Bonnie's rambling filtered through to Liv.

"Anyway, maybe you should skip it, if you have other things to do?"

The appointment at DuPont. She was giving Liv an out. Once again, Liv tried futilely to catch Kai's attention.

"I don't have other things to do," she said at last, cautiously.

Apparently, that was _not_ the answer Bonnie wanted to hear. Because in her usual, non-confrontational, butter-can't-melt-in-my-mouth, sweet-natured-little-Bennett way, she hemmed and hawed until Liv finally snapped,

"What's the matter, Bonnie, you don't want me to come?"

Bonnie sighed. "Actually, Caroline doesn't want you to come. She said, and I quote, 'if I see Liv Parker, I will kill her.'"

Liv gasped. She wasn't in the least bit shocked that the vampire would say something like that behind her back. She and Caroline barely tolerated each other on the best of days. But it was completely out of character for Bonnie to repeat them.

"Look… Liv."

Of course, Bonnie took it back at once. She always did. She rarely lost her temper and when she did, she would immediately feel guilty.

Bonnie could be so predictable. It was what made her so easy to manipulate.

" _She believes she has a chance. I have faith in her, unlike you."_

" _Don't you dare try to turn this around, Liv. Bonnie is doing this because you made her think she has to. She's doing this for you, for Caroline. You're. Using. Her."_

Liv overrode all Bonnie's apologies, twisting the knife of guilt as much as she could before she ended the call. A few more choice words, and she'd probably have got Bonnie to change her mind but she hadn't wanted that. She knew Bonnie well. But that went both ways. Bonnie would be able to tell at once that something was going down with Liv. And the first thing she would do would be to tell Luke. So until she and Kai found Jo, Liv needed to stay as far away from Bonnie – and her twin – as possible.

" _If anything happens to Bonnie, I will never forgive you."_

A jolt of anger and fear went through Liv and she shook herself. She wasn't a monster. No matter what Luke thought. He would understand in the end.

He had to.

"So you're free this morning."

She looked up. Kai had turned. He still stood in front of the window, and his face was shadowed. She couldn't make out his expression, or if he even had one. His voice, though, was cold, almost completely devoid of emotion.

She shrugged.

"Good. We're going to Sheila Bennett's house."

Liv stared. "Why?"

"She helped Jo hide in the first place. If anyone would know where she is, it's Sheila."

"Sheila Bennett died last November." Liv barely knew the old witch. For a long time, Bonnie had not wanted anything to do with her grandmother and Abby had encouraged that.

"I don't need to raise the dead," Kai said, his voice laced with darkness. "I just need to raise her magic."

* * *

 _ **January 2011**_

" _I want Emily's Grimoire."_

" _You want it? Or Joshua Parker wants it?"_

"I _want it. You told me you'd give it to me when I'm ready. Well, I am ready. I have studied. I have trained."_

" _There's more to magic than formulas and incantations, child. You're ready here," she tapped Bonnie's head, "but you're far from ready here." She tapped her heart._

 _Bonnie swallowed hard. She had practised with the twins on what to say. She remembered every argument that she was going to put up against her grandmother. But first, she would need to speak past the humongous lump that had formed in her throat. She blinked rapidly, trying to hold back the tears and failing._

" _Oh child," Sheila whispered and reached for her but Bonnie flinched, taking two steps back._

" _Why?" she managed to whisper._

" _You're not there," Sheila said softly. "If you were, I would know. I won't hold anything-"_

" _But you did. You do," Bonnie cried. "You hid my magic from me for years. You left me alone, defenseless."_

" _For your own good, Bonnie! Magic does… magic has a price. I didn't want you to pay it."_

 _The tears were flowing freely now. There was so much she wanted to say, so much she wanted to hurl in accusation at her grandmother._

Why did you let her take me? Why didn't you fight for me? Didn't you love me? Didn't you want me?

I miss you, Grams. Sometimes I get scared. So scared.

I want to come home.

 _She didn't say any of these things. She just stood, struggling and failing against her tears, barely listening to a word her grandmother said as she desperately searched her face for a sign, for a clue, for_ anything _to make this hole in her heart stop aching._

"She didn't want you, Bonnie. If she did, she'd have come for you."

 _Abby's voice echoing in her head._

" _My little Bonnie," Sheila said now, her voice breaking. "I love you. I would never, ever wish you harm."_

No, you don't love me.

 _Bonnie ran from the room, tears pouring down her cheeks._

 _And once again, Abby was waiting in the rented car for her, waiting to take her back to Portland._

 _Back home._

* * *

Bonnie stepped through the glass doors of the office building, and wrapped her arms around herself. She shivered, still in shock.

"Cold?" Caroline asked, at once removing her shawl and wrapping it around the smaller girl.

Bonnie smiled, "thank you."

Caroline kept her arm around Bonnie's shoulders, nudged her. "You don't have to go right away, you know. There's plenty of time after the wedding."

 _Sheila's words:_

" _You're ready here." Her head. "But you're far from ready here." Her heart._

Bonnie bit her lip. "I know but… I want to. It's mine now. All of it. I thought she'd leave something for Abby but… she left everything to me." She swallowed and tilted her head back, blinking hard.

Caroline squeezed.

"She. She saved my life," Bonnie whispered. "I think they were going to send me to Hell. The ancestors. They were going to punish me for using Expression. Strip my magic. Banish me to … somewhere beyond the Other Side. It was Grams that stopped them. She died to give me a chance."

"Oh, Bonnie."

"She _died_ for me, Care. I always thought she didn't love me, that she didn't want me. For a long time, I blamed her for Abby taking me away. I thought she could have fought harder for me.

"And then she turns around and _dies_ for me."

Caroline wrapped both arms around her and rested her chin on Bonnie's shaking shoulders.

"I didn't understand. I wish I had. I wish I could have taken it all back."

"She understood, Bonnie. She understood enough for both of you."

She pictured her grandmother the last time she had seen her. The look on her face as Bonnie had backed away from her, ran away from her. Then she had thought it was guilt. Now she realized what it was: heartbreak.

So much time wasted. So much _love_ wasted. They could never get it back now.

Bonnie would never see her grandmother again.

The weight of grief was so enormous that it was only Caroline's arms that literally kept her from collapsing under it.

Even then she still said, "You don't have to come. Mystic Falls is a long –"

"Please shut up, Bonnie."

* * *

After almost four hours behind the wheel, even a supernaturally powerful and a near-supernaturally upbeat vampire like Caroline Forbes would be exhausted, crabby and in need of a hot bath and bed.

And that was before they drove into Mystic Falls, Virginia.

The once picturesque idyllic town, the place she had called her home for most of her life was officially a dump. She drove past boarded up shops, homes with foreclosed signs on their overgrown lawns, and the burnt shell of Mystic Falls high school and came close to weeping. Beside her, she could see the same shock and grief on Bonnie's face.

"I don't remember it being this bad," Bonnie whispered.

"It gets a little worse every year. Sometimes some money comes in, what's left of the council tries to resurrect the town… but my mom says it's like putting a BandAid on a bullet wound. Sometimes, she says it's like putting a BandAid on a corpse."

The town died the day Damon Salvatore opened that tomb, Caroline thought bitterly. And for what? Katherine Pierce had never been inside it.

"I can't believe your mom is still here," Bonnie said.

"I keep trying to get her to leave but Mystic Falls is her home, she says. You know my Mom. Tough as nails and stubborn as… stubborn as…"

"You?"

"Bonnie!" They laughed. "When I finish law school, I'm dragging her out of this town if I have to compel her to do so."

* * *

Caroline told the Sherriff as much when they turned up at her door a few minutes later. Liz was just getting off-duty herself and she was still in uniform. In between cries of delight and hugs and tears (mostly, Bonnie's), Caroline counted two new lines on her mother's beautiful face.

They stepped into the home and the girls made identical sighing sounds. The same coloured walls. The same pictures. The same tasteful and functional furniture. Even Caroline's room was the same, as if frozen in time. At least while inside here, they could pretend their town wasn't dying around them.

Hours later, after dinner and over wine glasses, Caroline repeated her declaration to forcibly relocate Liv from the town. Her mother just laughed, and deftly changed the subject when the topic of her residence threatened to turn into a well-worn argument. Instead, she turned to the girl she had known since before she was born, and who a few months ago, she had been told was dead.

"Oh Bonnie, we thought we'd never see you again! Losing you and then Sheila at once, I'm so glad you made it back to us."

Liz Forbes knew about the supernatural, of course. Technically, as a member of the Founders's Council, she probably knew more about the supernatural than her vampire daughter and her daughter's witch best friend.

The two girls gave her an abridged version of Bonnie's story. They had already decided on the details that Liz really did not need to know.

"So," Liz said as soon as they were done. "You're still going ahead with the wedding."

It was only supreme self-control that clearly stopped Caroline from jumping to her feet and shouting, "You tell her Mom! Tell her!" Instead, she gave Bonnie a sharp, pointed glare.

Bonnie covered her eyes with her hand. "Please, Aunt Liz, not you, too."

"I'm only trying to understand," Liz said calmly, "the need for the rush. Shouldn't the Gemini coven be more concerned about this Prisoner of theirs? I'm law enforcement so maybe I'm biased but I'd think hunting down a fugitive would be the most important thing right now."

"They are hunting him down. It's only a matter of time before he's caught." Bonnie's eyes were shadowed.

"But-"

"Please don't go at me about the wedding, too. Please!"

"Oh, Bonnie." Liz sighed. "I've known you since - well, since before you were born. When they called me back to duty, and I had to leave Caroline, I'd leave her with Sheila and Abby, and the two of you slept in the same crib. Even after moving to Portland, you both made your friendship work. It wasn't easy but you did. You're as much my daughter as she is. You know that, don't you?"

"I do," Bonnie whispered softly.

"So what I say now, I say out of love. One of the last things, Sheila told me before she passed away was that she didn't want this marriage for you. She never meant for you to be as involved with the Parkers as you are now."

"They are good people, Aunt Liz. The Gemini coven fight evil, they police the supernatural. They're the good guys."

"You can help them without being wed to a man you don't love, a manyou can't love. Don't you want any happiness of your own, Bonnie? Someone to love? A family someday."

"I'll have a family with Luke." She gave a nervous giggle. "That's like, the whole point. My Bennett blood getting into the next generation of Parkers. Magic will help with any … difficulties."

Caroline's wine glass shattered in her grip. "Sorry!" she shouted, springing up. "I like… need to clean this up… and get out of here for a moment."

She stamped out of the room.

"I take it Caroline has expressed her opinion on this," Liz said with a small smile.

"Expressed is an understatement," Bonnie said, dryly.

Despite herself, Liz laughed. "We love you, Bonnie. You deserve all the happiness in the world. Help the Gemini by all means, but not at the sacrifice of your own future."

"The Parkers are my future," Bonnie said, earnestly. "I may not be in love with Luke, but I do love him and he loves me. I know what I'm doing, Aunt Liz. I wish you'd believe me."

Liz bit her lip, weighing her next words.

"Stephen was gay."

Bonnie's eyes bulged and she squirmed, clearly mortified.

 _Yes, Bonnie,_ Liz thought. _Prepare to be embarrassed if that's what's going to make you see reason._

"I loved him so much that I refused to see the signs that, well, that had been there all the times we were dating. And I'm glad I did because otherwise I won't have Caroline. She's the best thing that ever happened to me. If not for her, there were times…" Liz sighed. "When Caroline was ten, I met someone. Someone I cared for very much."

"Aunt Liz…" Bonnie said, nervously, clearly wanting this conversation to be over.

Liz ignored the unspoken plea. "He was one of the good ones. He couldn't with a married woman. It didn't matter that Stephen was gay. So I had to choose. I chose my family."

She nodded at the shock on Bonnie's face, and beneath that, the glimmer of understanding. "No matter how much you think you can love Luke, how much you're ready to understand, and to be content with the life he gives you… If – no, when – you find someone. When you find yourself in a position where you're not choosing an idea or a dream or a hope of love, but a person – choosing between the man you owe a duty to and the living, breathing man you want – what will you do?"

Bonnie swallowed hard, her hands clenched tightly around each other. "I'll choose Luke," she said fiercely. "I'll be his wife. We'll have a family. I'll choose my family."

"And you'll hate Luke for that. Maybe not right then," she raised her voice over Bonnie's protests, "maybe not even that week, that month. But it will build and build and build in your heart until it comes crashing down on you. And it won't end with him."

Bonnie was shaking her head, her eyes shining. "That's never going to happen to me."

"Bonnie-"

"You don't understand. It's never going to happen. This … perfect person… this person that I'll connect with, that I'll feel I was born to be with, that I'll want beyond reason?" Her mouth twisted painfully. "I will never choose him."

She stood up, wrung her hands painfully together, and turned on her heel and ran.

* * *

 ** _May 10 1994_**

 _He didn't deny it._

 _Up until then, she had refused to believe it, had refused to believe Katherine, even with the evidence laid stack before her eyes. There was a reasonable explanation. Kai would give it to her. Then things would go back to the way they were before. They'd get out of 1994, they'd prove his innocence to the Gemini coven and she'd break off her engagement with Luke._

 _Half way through her long speech, he had got up and walked to the window, and he stayed like that until she was done, his back turned to her. She wanted to ask him to look at her._

 _But she was already afraid._

 _When she finished, the silence stretched out for minutes. With each minute, she felt the foundations of her heart shudder._

" _Please… say something," she said at last._

 _He turned to her and she gasped. She had never seen this man before. This emotionless, empty face… these soulless eyes… this was not her Kai._

" _I always used to wonder," and his voice was touched with madness, echoed in its vastness. "Who names a kid Malachai? It's like they expected me to be evil."_

* * *

A four hour road trip was barely enough for eighteen years of questions but Kai certainly made the most of it. He ate up the information he got from Liv as eagerly as he ate up the packet of pork rinds he had found with great joy at one of their rest stops. Coven intrigues – the families that had risen and the ones that had fallen, the witches that were revered for magical skill and power and the ones that were feared for dabbling into the darker arts – he needed to know everything there was to know for when he eventually seized power.

He also asked about things like the economic recession _(Pam Anderson's house was up for sale? Bummer!),_ the Red Sox winning the World Series _(pictures or it never happened)_ , if there was a cure for HIV yet – no _(so practice safe orgies, Liv)_ and cloning.

"Now, that's a bummer," he decided when Liv informed him that contrary to his expectations, human cloning was not yet available for order via Amazon. "I would have loved my own personal doppelganger."

Liv dozed off sometime during the last hour of the ride. Kai turned the volume of the radio to max and sang along loudly. She stirred fitfully, but she remained fast asleep. He gave up after a while, and sipped thoughtfully at his soda, then at hers for the rest of the ride.

It was late evening by the time he drove past the 'Welcome to Mystic Falls' sign. Feeling pangs of _déjà vu_ , he navigated through streets that were both familiar and unfamiliar to him. He had lived in this town for the last three months of his time in Prison. The sensation of something crawling just behind his ribs, trying to clutch his heart was also both familiar and unfamiliar. He hadn't realized until now that being back here would probably make it worse. He squashed it at once, like he always did.

Mystic Falls had great significance to him.

He parked in front of their stop and glanced at Liv. She was still fast asleep, a sad little frown line in her forehead.

He poured the rest of her soda on her face.

Turned out that his little sister knew curses in English and Latin. Kai laughed so hard that he literally could not breathe.

"… and where the Hell are we?" She said, by way of finishing her tirade.

They were parked in front of a ranch-style building with faded paint. The street was empty, except for them and the dead leaves and crumpled newspapers sweeping in the breeze. There were at least four street lamps but only one was lit, casting shadows on the house and a signboard with the words 'Salv tor Boardin H use'.

"What a dump," Liv said. "No way I'm sleeping in there."

"The nearest hotel is at least an hour away." She started speaking and he cut her off. "You can walk there if you insist."

He grabbed his bag and the keys and got out of the car. He passed through the broken gate and started climbing up the steps. In a few minutes, he heard the car door slam as Liv grudgingly followed.

The door was locked. Kai left his finger on the bell while Liv muttered things about the possibilities of electricity, running water and rodents. He was contemplating whether carrying her dead weight was worth the relief of knocking her unconscious when the door opened.

A faded woman in faded clothes stared at them.

"Can I help you?"

"We have a reservation. Two rooms." Proudly, Kai handed her the printouts he had prepared with Liv's computer and printer.

The woman collected the papers without glancing at them. She stared at them with faded eyes.

Kai stared back.

Liv fidgeted. "Look, if you're all booked-"

"We have rooms," the woman said. She turned away and walked into the house.

Kai and Liv exchanged glances. Then they gathered their bags and followed.

The hallway was dimly lit and what could be seen of it was old and faded. The woman had waited for them to come in, then she had gone to stand behind the receptionist's desk.

Liv stood in the middle of the room, looking around her with increasing gloominess. Kai strolled up to the desk.

"So I take it you have a vampire problem in Mystic Falls."

The woman stared at him, an empty look on her face.

"Do you have any other house guests?"

"Not at the moment, no." She slid two keys across the desk to him.

There was a spell to reveal if a person had been compelled by a vampire. But Kai didn't need magic … just the eyes to see the faded shell of a human being before him.

"Hey, Livvy-poo!"

He tossed one of the keys at her surprised face. She dodged at the last second and the key whistled past her ear, clipping it. Kai smiled at the bright red blood and her shrieks as she clutched her ear and scrambled for the key on her hands and her feet.

Kai cocked an ear, and sent out tendrils of Liv's magic throughout the building. There were all sorts of intriguing magical footprints in this place – some very fascinating magical history had happened here. But what he was searching for – a vampire's aura – was absent, despite all the doubtlessly delicious Parker-witch blood that his sister was so carelessly dripping on the carpet. He curled his left pinkie, parsing through time, searching for shadow auras – a sign that a vampire lived there, even though it was currently absent.

Nothing. The place was, presently, as vampire free as anywhere in Mystic Falls.

Which was not saying much.

He did feel something else, though. What he had felt earlier, only stronger, that sense of his heart being gripped in a vice. He clenched his fist and forced it to stop.

Liv was still scrounging for the key.

Goodness, didn't she remember she was a witch?

With a sneer, he whispered a small summoning spell and her key flew into his palm. "Hey, Liv," he said again.

She marched to him, glaring, and grabbe it. "What is your problem?" she hissed.

He just shrugged.

He had a score to settle with a vampire who had ties to Mystic Falls, to the very family that once lived and owned this particular building. It wasn't very high on his list at the moment, but someday soon, after he had found his twin, won the Merge and gained ultimate power,

 _(and claimed her)_

he would make it rue the day it crossed him.

Soon, he thought with a grim little smile, feeling _it_ start up again, he would make them _all_ pay.

* * *

 ** _May 10 1994_**

" _It was the vampire, wasn't it? I should have staked her first thing. I knew I'd regret it and damn do I hate always being right. No good deed and all that crap."_

" _N-no. I figured it out…"_

 _He laughed. Only Bonnie Bennett would try to put herself in front of a five hundred year old vampire._

" _You'd never have figured it out on your own, would you, sweet little Bonnie?" He spat out her name like if it tasked like poison in his mouth._

 _In a way, it did._

" _K-Kai?"_

" _And it was such a good theory, wasn't it?" He rubbed the back of his neck mock-wearily. "The gaps in the timeline, the dagger, the hanging… even the baseball bat. Jo always had a hell of a swing. Heck, I almost started believing it myself."_

" _Believing what, Kai?" she whispered the question, but he saw in her eyes, that she knew the answer._

 _Beyond any reasonable doubt._

 _He widened his own eyes guilelessly. "That I was innocent, of course."_

 _The look on Bonnie's face would have driven him mad._

 _If he wasn't already there._

" _But I can't take all the credit. You staring at me with those big, brown doe-eyes of yours. You'd have believed it if I told you they all committed some sort of ritual suicide pact. You should have seen the relief on your face when I gave you the Josette-did-it-and-framed-me speech. You drank it all up. You so badly wanted me to be innocent, didn't you?" He took a step towards her._

 _She took a step back._

" _You wanted me to be the unjustly imprisoned twin that you were going to save." Another step._

" _No. I believed you…"_

" _Because you wanted to. How else would you reconcile that perfect, flawless, pure-as-untrodden-snow self-image with all those dirty thoughts you were having of Malachai Parker? You believed me because you. wanted. me."_

 _Her back was to the wall._

" _No, no." There were tears in her eyes. She was shaking her head, shaking all over. He was so close to her now that he could reach out and grab her. He could wrap both hands round her neck and then he would never have to see fear in the eyes that had adored him before. Never have to hear hate spew from the mouth that had told him she loved him._

 _Instead he put both hands flat on either side of her face and leaned in, so close that she turned her face away and his lips were almost brushing her cheek. He breathed in her scent._

 _"Oh yes, Bonnie."_

 _She smelt like clean water and flowers and_ him _. He could hear in her breath the sobs she was fighting to hold back._

 _There was a hole in his chest that she carved in there and at that moment, Kai hated her more than he had ever hated anyone in his life._

" _You fell in love with a child-killing psychopath." He smiled. Wide. Shark-like._

 _Manic._

" _So, Bonnie Bennett, what does that make_ you _?"_


	7. Grimoire

A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who read and reviewed and liked this story. I really appreciate all your words of encouragement and your feedback. Please keep them coming. I have a general idea of where this story is going, but I'm also open to correcting/improving. Also, this chapter is not beta'd so I'll appreciate any corrections of that nature.

* * *

 **7**

 **The Grimoire**

* * *

Bonnie had showered, dressed in plain jeans and her oldest shirt, and even managed to catch breakfast with Liz Forbes before the Sherriff left for the station. She went back to Caroline's bedroom and grabbed her bag and keys, then paused to stare uncertainly at the apparently comatose blonde figure on the bed.

"Caroline, get up."

Caroline opened one eye and shuddered.

"Seriously, Bonnie? I drove four hours yesterday. I'm exhausted."

"You're a vampire. Vampires don't get exhausted."

The second eye opened and both glared at Bonnie. "We also sleep during the day."

"In a coffin."

"You magic me a coffin and I'll hit that pillow faster than you can say _grave_."

"You're useless. I'm off to Grams' house."

That got Caroline to at least raise her head. "So soon? Give me a moment, I'll come with." She punctuated the last word with a wide yawn.

Bonnie rolled her eyes. "I can't wait, Care. We need to start heading back to Whitmore this afternoon if I'm going to catch that plane today." She paused, and then said quietly, "I'd actually prefer some time alone there first."

Caroline nodded, understanding clear on her face.

"Maybe you can come over in an hour or two? You'll have to call a cab. I have the keys."

"I don't need to call a cab, I'm a vampire, remember?"

"As you keep reminding me, Countess Dracula," Bonnie retorted, and left.

Mystic Falls in the early morning was even more dismal than Mystic Falls in the late evening. Bonnie counted more empty homes than occupied homes, and those that looked lived in had reinforced doors, bars over their windows. Every picket fence was lined with sprigs of vervain, not neatly trimmed or prettified but left to grow as wild and ugly as the rest of the town.

Bonnie drove past the burnt down high school and shuddered. She remembered the Homecoming Dance that Caroline had invited her to. She had double dated with Matt Donovan and Tyler Lockwood, two boys she had known from elementary school.

They were gone now.

Like Elena.

Bonnie was almost at the brink of tears by the time she pulled up in front of her Grams's old house. The split-level home stood quietly in its green lawn. This seemed to be a more occupied part of the town. She only spotted one foreclosed house.

She wandered if her grandmother's influence – even now that she was dead – had something to do with that.

She parked the car across the street and sat there for a while. A pang of nostalgia hit her so strong that she needed a moment to force back the lump that had built in her throat.

 _Herself at five, running around the house, Elena and Caroline giving chase, three-year-old Jeremy, Elena's little brother, crying as he struggled and failed to keep up with them. Grams shouting from the kitchen window that they should slow down for him. Bonnie finally tripping over a shrub and Elena jumping on her, Caroline following suit._

It was strange how memories worked. Bonnie had stronger memories of this house, than she did of her own home where she lived with her dad. Even when she was growing up in Portland, it was Sheila's house that she dreamt of when she dreamt of Mystic Falls, more than she dreamt of her father's house. She could barely remember what it even looked like.

 _That_ house was long gone now, sold to some developer who had mowed it down, tried to set up a hotel and had abandoned it. Another failed attempt to inject new blood into the town.

At the end of the moment, she stepped out of the car and walked to her grandmother's – no, _her_ – house. It was hers, entirely. Sheila's will had been unambiguous. Bonnie touched the gate and felt a thrill like a small shock climb up her arm. And like a switch being flicked, she was suddenly aware of the strong, multiple wards around the house, pulsing with energy.

Bonnie smiled inwardly. Of course, what self-respecting witch would leave her home unprotected? She touched the gate again and it gave way under her fingers. Whatever magic Sheila had placed on her house, it was not against her. Either because she was Sheila's own blood or because Sheila had configured Bonnie's aura into the spell.

She climbed up the steps, and fumbling with the key she had collected from the lawyer the day before, she opened the front door and entered her house.

It was beautiful, just as she remembered. Clean yellow and green painted walls. Pictures of a wide variety of subjects – ranging from Yaa Asantewaa, Empress of the Ashanti to a perfect zodiac drawn with shells – hanging on the walls. There were flowers in vases all over the house. Bonnie touched the petals of a rose, and marvelled at its freshness. To the best of her knowledge, there was no contract in place to clean or otherwise maintain the house. But it was – preserved, that is and beautifully so. Neither an inch of dust nor a whiff of stale air could be perceived. The sense of working magic was strong and the analytical part of Bonnie's brain wondered what it was anchored to if it was still active after its caster's death. Perhaps something within the boundary of the property? It was a clever spell then that protected its own foundation.

It was an interesting problem, and she tried to give it some thought but it was barely a distraction from the barrage of memories that kept assaulting her.

 _Sitting on the kitchen floor and playing with pots as Sheila cooked up a storm. Tea sets carefully arranged in preparation for a garden party with her father. Squirming on the living room floor as Abby did her hair. Smashing the vase right there while playing hide and seek with Elena and Jeremy. Whispering up at Caroline as she climbed up the pantry to find Grams' whiskey, and the two girls giggling as they helped themselves._

 _Standing in the hallway like a stranger, Luke and Liv flanking her sides as she asked – no, demanded – that Sheila gave her Emily Bennett's Grimoires._

The few times she had been in Mystic Falls from Portland to visit with Elena and Caroline – mostly Caroline in the end, she had gone to see Sheila twice. Sheila had never given Bonnie anything she asked for during those visits. Neither had Bonnie promised Sheila anything that was asked of her. They had all ended badly, with Bonnie in or near tears, cursing Sheila in her head if not with her voice.

Well, the Grimoires were hers now. The talisman, the scrolls, the entire Bennett heritage was somewhere in this house and it all belonged to her.

It still shocked Bonnie that Sheila had left them for her.

" _You're not ready, child."_

" _I will never be ready to you!"_

She shook her head, as if to shake off the memories and the regrets; and she went to her grandmother's study.

She had rarely stepped into this room. It had been barred from her as a child and she only went there when her grandmother accompanied her. Bonnie had a vague memory of being unable to open the door. But when she turned the knob, it fell open without resistance.

More magic. She could feel it in the air, making goosebumps rise on her arms. The room was dark, even with the light she turned on so she opened the curtains in the far wall. The furniture was sparse – a long oak table with a matching seat. A desktop terminal and printer that was a few years out of date. A sofa in one corner, in front of a small centrepiece carrying a globe that was so large it was probably as tall as Bonnie. Its boundaries were drawn rather strangely, she noted absent-mindedly.

There was also a bookshelf that covered the length of the wall, spanning from ceiling to floor.

Bonnie took a deep breath, and exhaled, saying the words of a basic guiding spell in her head and stretched out her hands.

Two books came flying out of the bookshelf and into her hands.

Gingerly she placed them on the table.

They were old, cloth bound with pages of varying quality and origin, a few sticking out completely. She opened both at the same time. The first one had 'Emily Bennett' written on its first page with elegant cursive. The second had 'Sheila Bennett' stamped on it with a customized seal.

Up until then, Bonnie had expected to reach for Emily's first. It was, after all, the Grimoire that she had longed for since she knew what a Grimoire was, when she saw the twins writing in theirs and had wanted one. Joshua Parker had spoken at length about Emily Bennett's Grimoire. He told her about the spells it contained, some of which came from such obscurity that there were no other records of them in the entire world. And that was to say nothing about Emily's own inventions, the magic that was exclusively her own work. Emily had shared some with other covens but there were bound to be countless secrets she kept for her family alone. And beyond Emily, at least three other generations of Bennetts had written in this Grimoire, their spells, their adventures, and their secrets. For a Grimoire was a spellbook but it was also a journal, a record of a witch-family's history. There was magic here that any witch would spend hundreds of years studying and still not have exhausted.

And it was all Bonnie's.

And yet…

She picked up her grandmother's Grimoire and flicked past the first page. The page below was older, yellow and worn. It had Sheila's name again but this time, it was written by hand, a young hand if its unevenness was any indication. She must have started this Grimoire when she was a very young witch. The first pages were filled with simple drawings, spells of levitations and illumination, children's magic. There was also writing, too. Every page had a story. Sheila Bennett had kept the journal of her life quite faithfully.

Bonnie had thought she knew her grandmother so well. And she had been completely wrong.

She kept turning the pages, and the magic floated up at her like feathers.

* * *

Kai woke up at the crack of dawn, and found his way to the dining room. The offerings for breakfast were meagre and after asking permission from their faded hostess, he made himself comfortable in the rather well stocked kitchen and cooked up a storm. Apparently, he and Liv were the only guests in the boarding house at present so he didn't hold anything back. By the time he had finished a healthy breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, lemon slices, washed down with hot chocolate and capped with a shot of his sister's magic, he was ready to face the day. He left Liv writhing in her room – the poor kid deserved a time-out – and drove to Sheila Bennett's house by himself.

It was almost noon. The rush of commuters - what was left of them in this dying town - had long abated and in the empty streets, he enjoyed having Liv's fancy car to himself. The old man had spared no expense with the brats, Kai thought with no small bitterness, remembering a time when he had slaved all summer to scrape up cash to buy a motorcycle.

The nagging sense, the spasm in his chest, that had descended on him as they drove into Mystic Falls had not abated overnight. Rather it had increased, was increasing as he drew closer to the Bennett's house.

It was an inconvenience, nothing more.

He had reasoned out the cause while cooking. It was rather obvious, really. Magic was unpredictable. Strong emotions created in another time, even in another dimension could still leave imprints in its geo-equivalent location.

So profound emotions had been felt in the Mystic Falls of the 1994 prison, he thought with some bitterness. What of it? He had survived on his rage, his malice, and his sense of betrayal for seventeen years as he literally travelled all over the world.

A few intense months in Mystic Falls had only served to magnify those emotions and ground them, so to speak, in this town. And those were the _only_ emotions he felt.

(Kai Parker certainly did not feel guilt. Nor regret. And he was incapable of love. His own mother had told him that when he was a very small child and that was one lesson he had never forgotten.)

He turned a corner and Sheila Bennett's house loomed up ahead. And the pang – and yes, it was a pang – felt even heavier in his chest. His hands on the wheel were shaking a little and he swallowed against the heaviness in his throat. He managed to park the car in front of the fence, then he took a deep and much needed breath.

 _What was wrong with him?_

For a moment, Kai stared at the house, and considered going back to the boarding house and returning with his sister. He would distract himself by tormenting her.

Something caught his eye. A flash of white. He looked hard at the house, trying to figure out what he saw. Finally he noticed the open curtains in the upper window. Every other window had its curtains drawn. Someone was there, in that room… He looked around him, and noticed the car parked across the street.

And he suddenly realized what he had been feeling all along.

 _Her_ presence.

She was here. In Mystic Falls.

Bonnie Bennett was here.

* * *

Something woke her up. A sharp bell in her head. An alarm. It jerked her right out of a dreamless slumber and right onto the floor beside the sofa. She bumped her head against the globe.

"Ow," she moaned.

She had fallen asleep reading Sheila's Grimoire. She glanced at the window. She could tell from the light that some hours had passed. Apparently, Caroline was not the only one that was fatigued from their journey.

But what woke her? An alarm, she remembered.

Instinctively, she reached for her cell. 12:31PM. Two voice messages. Luke and Caroline.

Caroline's message was brief.

"Hi, Bonnie. I'm at the station. My mom wants to show me some stuff. I'm really sorry, OK? I'll be over as soon as I'm done."

Bonnie called her back at once, told her not to worry about it. Caroline sounded distracted. She was still at the station, but she reassured Bonnie she would soon be done. Bonnie reminded her to call before leaving the station.

Luke's message was briefer.

"Call me back."

He picked up on the first ring.

"Hey, Luke."

"Bon, where are you?"

"Mystic Falls."

"What? Remember we have a plane to catch this evening? What's going on in Mystic Falls?"

Bonnie sighed. "Can you help me reschedule my flight? I'm not sure I'll be able to make the 1915 to Orlando."

"First, you cancel our date now you're bailing on our trip. Talk to me, wifey. I thought your sidepiece was at Whitmore, nor Mystic Falls."

Bonnie smiled. "Very funny. I'm just…" She cleared her throat. "I'm going through some of my grandmother's stuff."

"Oh," Luke's voice was soft. "Bummer."

Bonnie sighed. "Yeah, that's one way of putting it."

"I always liked her, you know."

"I know you did." Luke was the only person in Portland that ever had anything good to say about Sheila Bennett. He had tried to encourage Bonnie several times to reach out and make peace with her grandmother. "I wish I had taken your advice all those years ago."

"I'm always right. It's a curse, I tell you," Luke said with a heavy sigh.

Bonnie laughed a little.

"I wish I could be there with you," he said gently.

"So do I," Bonnie said with a sigh.

"For all the cool stuff in her house, I mean. The Grimoires, the talismans, the home theatre. Not so that you can cry your mascara into my silk shirt. Ours is a strictly physical relationship, remember? You go to your little bits on the side for emotional fulfilment."

Now, Bonnie was giggling so hard, she was almost hiccupping. "You are outrageous, Luke."

"We gotta keep it real, Bon. And talking about keeping it real," a little seriousness entered his voice. "Those guys in Orlando are pretty hard-core. You can't bail on this one."

"I won't." Faintly, she heard a bell peal. "Is that you?"

"What?"

"The bell? The alarm? Is that from you?"

"I don't think so. Although I'm not far from a crowd. It could be anyone's phone. The Huangs are here."

"Oh dear." The Huangs were one of the most powerful families in the Gemini coven. Greg Huang and Joshua Parker hated each other's guts. Dealing with them was a diplomatic nightmare.

"You can manage them," Bonnie said, encouragingly. "You were always the best at buttering people up without actually promising them anything."

"You brat. I can't wait until it's your job to deal with these geezers."

"Why would I have to with you around?"

"Keep telling yourself that. You know you'll be Queen Mother to our next set of magical twins. Whether Liv or I win, it's you, Bonnie Bennett-Parker, that will be co-ruling this madhouse with one of us for a long time."

Bonnie winced. Luke was always so casual about the Merge. His and Liv's. Their future children's. She didn't know how he did it.

It had actually been a relief to find out that Liv was not as accepting of the Merging Ceremony as Bonnie always thought.

"I… I have to get going now. I'll get Caroline and we'll start heading back to Whitmore."

"Good. I'll book us the red-eye to Orlando. Er… by the way…" he hesitated.

"What is it?"

"I don't suppose Liv is there with you?"

Bonnie and Liv had not been very chummy since she returned from the Prison World and Luke was well aware of this. An alarm bell rang in Bonnie's head.

It literally rang, she realized suddenly. She looked around the study to see if she could see something to explain the noise. Nothing.

It _had_ to be coming from his side.

"Bonnie?"

She shook her head out of her distracted thoughts. "No. Caroline drove me down. We're staying at her mom's place. Why?"

"Er… no particular reason."

He couldn't have sounded cagier if he tried. The last time he had sounded like this about his twin, Liv was cavorting with shady occult professors and shadier vampires to track down Expression Magic.

"Luke, what is it? What's going on with Liv?"

"Nothing that concerns you. You get what you need from Mystic Falls and get back here in good time for the trip."

He had that tone in his voice that brooked no argument. Bonnie knew it would be a waste of time pressing him. In all fairness, she didn't really want to. The last time she had worried about Liv's antics, Bonnie had ended up in a tug of war between constantly shifting alliances of ruthless vampires, even more ruthless humans and a couple of fanatical vampire hunters.

She had enough on her plate at the moment.

"Bye, Luke."

She ended the call. The silence of the empty house rushed in on her at once.

She picked up her grandmother's Grimoire from the floor. It had fallen open when she dozed off and now the pages were slightly creased. Apologetically, she smoothened them and shut the book carefully.

Sheila Bennett had lived an extraordinary life. She had travelled to Britain after high school and liberated a Scottish village from a nest of vampires; for decades, she worked on a spell to harness the power of a dormant volcano; the same year she was expecting her only child, she had climbed Mount Everest – no supernatural monsters there, just Sheila being a badass. Bonnie had skimmed past increasingly intimidating accounts of her grandmother's life to the last pages. She fell asleep halfway in the middle of the account of Sheila defeating an Original vampire right here in Mystic Falls.

What had she, Bonnie, done with all her incredible Bennett powers? Excelled in Magic School and crowed over the twins?

In fact, she realized with a wince, the most noteworthy thing she had ever done in her life was to wield Expression. Dabbling with the darkest of dark magic and literally getting herself killed for her troubles.

She bit her lip and put the book into her bag, beside Emily Bennett's Grimoire.

Somewhere a bell pealed.

Bonnie almost jumped out of her skin. _Where is that noise coming from?_ She turned around and there it was again. A bell ringing. It was coming from somewhere close by.

She put a hand on her heart. It was coming from…

It was coming from inside her.

And Bonnie suddenly realized what it was.

The wards.

Something - no, someone was breaching the wards.

She barely even had time to react, to panic. On cue, the magical signature of the person broadcasted itself at her.

 _Luke? No. Liv. No. Neither._ It was eerily similar to both but Bonnie had learnt magic alongside the twins. She was more familiar with their signatures than she was of her own – rather the same way a person would recognise their sibling's face better than their own.

And yet. It was a signature that was _like_ the twins'. Uncannily so. Even more, it was a signature that Bonnie recognized. She was sure of it. She knew this person. And she had known this person recently. Closely.

 _Intimately._

Bonnie's heart jumped.

 _No. Oh god, no._

 _It couldn't be._

She was standing, her fists clenched on either side of her when Kai Parker pushed the door open and walked in.

* * *

Don't forget to nominate Bonkai for Teen Choice Awards! You can tweet as many times as you like, and you can retweet other people's tweets as well. Won't it be amazing to see the look on the faces of JPlec and co if Bonkai gets nominated and even wins? It won't bring back Kai or Bonkai but they'd look silly. And maybe they would have some explaining to do to the CWTV execs.

Just copy and paste:

 **My #TeenChoice nominee for #ChoiceTVChemistry is #bonkai Bonnie and Kai**


	8. Crash

**8**

 **Crash**

* * *

After spending over a decade in a Prison World, plotting to reclaim his birthright and enact vengeance on the people that imprisoned him – Kai Parker liked to believe that he had thought and prepared for everything.

He hadn't prepared for Bonnie Bennett.

The girl, her effect on him, were all wildcards that he would rather not deal with before the Merge Ceremony. Which was why he had gone out of his way to actively avoid her during his time on the Whitmore campus, even though it would have been so easy to seek her out.

Even though it had been so difficult to stay away.

So it made absolutely no sense for him to step into Sheila Bennett's house, knowing whom he would find in there. It made no sense for him to siphon a path through the powerful wards, to go up the steps, down the corridor and step through that door.

She was on her feet, fists clenched, magic coiled around her like a tightly drawn bow.

Until then, Kai thought he would never forget the way Bonnie Bennett looked – her deep green eyes, cupid bow mouth, that heart shaped face, the perfectly curved little body that had fit against his own like matching puzzle pieces.

But he realized his memory of her was like a faded photograph, sharp in his head but dim and flat compared to the real thing. The real thing was flashing jade fire, wild dark curls and golden skin and a mouth that he wanted to devour so badly, he thought he would pass out from wanting.

Vaguely, Kai realized that a part of him had assumed that being literally and figuratively stabbed in the back by this girl would have dimmed his ardour somewhat.

Apparently not.

Heart pounding, he wasn't even aware that he was moving towards her until her arms went up, palms facing him.

"Take one more step and I will melt your face off."

He smirked. "Is that how you greet all your exes?" He took a very deliberate step closer.

"Stay back!"

"Are you really going to set fire to your Grandma's library?"

She splayed out the fingers of one hand and he flew into the wall.

The impact sent a current of pain from his tailbone to the tips of his fingers, his teeth jarring in his head. He must have blacked out for a second because when he opened his eyes, she was flying through the door, her bag slapping against her.

Kai grinned and cricked his neck. The pain was a pleasant wake-up call, a reminder that he dealt best with this girl when he acted the role of antagonist.

"You wanna play, Bonnie?" he whispered. "I've missed our little games."

He stalked into the corridor, looking over the railing at her tiny figure pounding down the steps.

"Hey, Bon."

She flashed a look of panic over her shoulder just as he stretched out his hand and grabbed at her with magic.

She shrieked as she stumbled, her hold on the handrail the only thing that saved her from tumbling down the stairs, then she righted herself and kept on running.

Damn. That spell was supposed to freeze her not trip her. He had forgotten about the wards. He probably couldn't use magic against her in this house.

Very well. There were ways around that.

He closed his eyes and thought and when he opened them, he was standing at the foot of the steps and she was about to come crashing into him.

Bonnie's eyes widened, her hair flying around her face, and her mouth opening in the shock of a silent scream. For a wild moment, Kai imagined catching her and closing that mouth with his own.

The moment cost him. Because he didn't notice her hand reaching over her shoulder for her satchel until it was swinging at him.

It went right into his gut, and he bent over, too winded to even shout.

She followed after the bag, shoving at him with her fists so that he went sprawling as she ran to the door.

" _Motus_!" Bonnie screamed. Even though he was on the floor, he stretched out his hand, trying to shut the door back, before he realized what the spell was for when he felt the bag sliding away from him.

He got on his knees and grabbed for it, just catching it at the same time that her fingers curled around the straps. The bag stretched taut between them. He pulled.

She came flying at him and this time Kai was ready.

He caught her wrists and pinned her onto the floor. He quickly switched from one grip to another, so that he held both her wrists with one hand and his other hand was free to clamp around her neck. He leaned over her and ever so slightly, he pulled at her magic…

Bonnie screamed, her eyes filling with tears. He stopped.

"I can make it worse," he reminded her with a deadly whisper, his eyes trained on her left ear, a few inches past those shining, hate-filled eyes. "Use your magic on me and I will dry you up."

"Get off me," she gasped, trying to kick him. He held her down with one knee. She jerked, her body spasming off the ground.

"Stop it," he snapped, because he could barely manage to be as near her as this, feeling her skin on his hands, her scent in his nostrils and keep himself off her. He wanted nothing so much than to push his body on her and feel her writhing against him.

He had a death wish.

"I'm not here for you," he said through clenched teeth.

She gasped incoherently.

"What?" he asked, loosening his grip on her neck ever so slightly and bending near.

Her eyes were as sharp as knives. Her words cut deeper, spilling out from that wicked mouth. "Do you have any idea how much I hate you?"

Bile filled Kai's throat and he barely managed to swallow it. He leaned over her, his face inches from hers. "Right back at you," he snarled and he kissed her.

Bonnie's breath hitched once and then her mouth was open, her body arcing into his own as he slid his hand from over her throat to under her neck, his fingers slipping into her hair to cradle her head and angle it to his own. Her arms – he didn't even realise he had freed her hands – wrapped around him like vines.

It should have been a brutal kiss, more a punishment than a caress.

It wasn't.

Their bodies curled around each other with the same desperation that their tongues tangled, twisted, mated, their mouths coming together over and over between short, frantic gasps for breath. His heart was pounding so loudly, it deafened him. Her breath kept hitching, as if she was fighting back sobs, but her arms around his body were like iron, drawing him tight against her. He moaned into her mouth and he felt her body shudder against him before she kissed back harder. They were slightly out of sync: Kai would reach for another taste just as she struggled to catch her breath, and she was nibbling at his lips while he gasped against her mouth.

It was fiery and desperate, and it burnt its way through him, igniting all the nerves in his body. Bonnie was gasping his name now, her body arcing even more into his own, her leg rubbing against his inner thigh, curves pressing against him, fitting into him perfectly and he felt like if he would go mad if he couldn't have her, right there and then on her grandmother's floor.

Her fingers were in his hair, and he felt them tighten, pulling by the strands until he broke off the kiss.

They stared at each other, panting.

Bonnie's mouth was red and swollen, her hair wild, her eyes wilder, her skin glowing in a way that sent the little blood left in his brain rushing south.

So of course, he was completely unprepared when her fist rammed into the side of his face.

The explosion of pain sent Kai reeling to his side, and the punch that went into his gut threw him on his back. He landed on something that stabbed into his side.

He heard rather than saw Bonnie scramble to her feet, her breath thick with sobs, and with a gasped " _Motus_ ", she was out the door before he could stop her.

His head stopped spinning long before the sensation of utter desolation left him.

* * *

The Sheriff's office was humid, as always the air conditioning was a bust and the lazy ceiling fan barely stirred the air. Caroline needed a tall glass of something – blood or alcohol. Either was looking pretty good right now. For the heat and for her head that was about to split into two.

Vampires were supposed to have super-healing so how come she still got headaches?

Because she had a major migraine right now: it had started sometime in the past hour she had spent poring over this case file with her mother.

"Look," Caroline said now, trying a different variation of what she had been repeating for the past half hour. "I know a lot of Mystic Falls Open cases are supernatural crimes. But this was an accident. They still happen, you know. You've duelled with so many monsters, you're seeing them everywhere, Mom."

The Sheriff frowned in reply, and retorted with the same response she had been giving her skeptical daughter for the past half hour. "I had a bad feeling about this right from the night of the accident. The scene… it was wrong, OK? Don't ask me how I know this. It's a cop thing. I was positive there'd be an investigation but it was closed abruptly."

"Mom, that doesn't mean-"

"Caroline, even our 'animal attacks' get investigated! We just decide not to publish our findings. But the Sheriff then handled this personally and closed the case within days. The moment I became Sheriff, I re-opened the case privately. I've turned over every piece of information on record about this case. I wanted to be wrong about this, Caroline. I wanted to convince myself that it really was just an accident. Or worse, just a random vampire attack where poor Rudy was at the wrong place at the wrong time. But instead… I found Pandora's box. It took me years before I showed this to Sheila and Abby."

Caroline was shaking her head. "There's nothing I see here that can't be explained away as circumstantial."

"Caroline-"

"My god, Mom, I wish you hadn't shown me this!" Caroline snapped, losing it. "She already has so much going on right now. Now I'm going to throw this theory of yours on the pile of crap that's her life!"

"You don't have to-"

"Of course, I have to tell her. We don't keep secrets from each other. You knew that, didn't you? Isn't that why you showed this to me?"

Liz dabbed the sweat at her brow. "No, it's not. I'm showing this to you because I know you keep in touch with Stefan Salvatore" – Caroline squirmed – "Maybe he can have a look at this? Ask around the supernatural underground?"

"First, Mom, please don't ever say supernatural underground again. Secondly, if Sheila and Abby never found anything after all these years, what makes you think that Stefan will?" Caroline asked, sceptically. "Thirdly, 'in touch' is the opposite of where Stefan and I are right now. I stopped being on speaking terms with him and his brother after the whole business with Bonnie and the Cure." Her face turned wrathful.

"You're going to have to put all that aside now if you want to help Bonnie. Sheila was a very powerful witch. But she was too close to this," Liz said firmly. "It didn't take her a moment to not only believe me when I told her but to conclude… Well, two guesses whom she thought was responsible?"

Caroline stared blankly. She didn't follow. "Who would have been responsible? There's no motive. Nobody stood to gain any wealth outside his immediate family - his mom and his daughter. He and his wife had divorced years ago."

"And after he died, she got full custody of their daughter, moved across the country and was welcomed with open arms by the Gemini coven."

Caroline's mouth fell open as the pieces clicked into place. "No way, Mom. No way," but she wasn't sure she was saying 'no' in shock or 'no' in denial.

Liv leaned back on her seat, a look of satisfaction on her face. "You want to help her get out of this … _contract_ she was roped into? This might just be your only chance."

* * *

Liv Parker's Volvo tore out of Mystic Falls as if all Hell's demons were at its wheels.

On their way to Mystic Falls, Kai had driven like an accident waiting to happen – running through lights, doing impromptu drag races with every fast car that tried to pass him.

Now, Kai drove like an accident _wanting_ to happen. He turned bends without lifting his feet from the gas, he cut across cars with inches to spare. Everytime Liv opened her mouth to yell at him, she'd take in the sense of barely leashed fury pouring out in waves from him, and close it.

He had told Liv nothing about how his expedition at Sheila's house went. He had returned to the boarding house with a face like thunder and all but dragged her out to the car. At first, she thought that he failed – that he was unable to enter the house, or he had bombed at finding the Grimoires – until he threw two of them at her.

Which just made things even more alarming because now Liv had no idea what was pissing Kai off, only that she was the most likely to die because of it.

They stopped once to buy gas, and she tentatively suggested he get something to eat. Her ears were still ringing from the way he had cursed her out for that.

The car lurched forward now, gaining speed on the Prius in front of it, and her heart lurched with it. She swallowed hard, trying to keep her breakfast down, and flicking through the Grimoire on her lap at the same time.

"Sheila's only mentioned Jo a couple of times," she said now. Although, there had been several mentions of the Gemini coven and the Parker family in general. And Liv had studied for a long time the page containing the spell that had been used to trap Kai in the Prison World – but she was careful not to state these things. "She gave Jo references and set her up to study premed in Whitmore College. Then either they fell out of touch, or nothing to do with Jo's been worth journaling since then. So the premed thing is our only clue. I can't find anything about a concealment spell."

"Keep looking," Kai said grimly. "Sheila had to have used magic to hide Jo from the coven all these years. The Bennetts are about the only witches that have the power to cast a spell that's too powerful for our coven to break; and the only ones fearless enough to do so."

"You're damn right about the power and the fearlessness. This stuff is awesome. I still can't believe you got _two_ Bennett grimoires," Liv said, excited despite everything. "If Dad could get his hands on these! Do you know how many times Bonnie tried to get - _WATCH OUT_!"

For the car had veered off its lane, curving in an arc that cut across three lanes, pushing forward in a burst of acceleration and then curving back into its lane, now ahead of the Prius and three other vehicles.

Liv tried to calm down. Failed.

" _What the hell was that?_ Are you trying to get us killed?"

At the moment, her sudden fear of death by automobile accident had overpowered her constant fear of death by homicidal brother.

Kai didn't speak at first, just changed gears. Literally. The car jumped forward again and Liv almost lost her breakfast.

"What does the grimoire say about Josette?" he growled.

"What is your problem?" Liv shouted back.

"What does the damn Grimore say about finding my damn twin?" Kai said through gritted teeth.

"I'm not going to read another page of this book until you slow down and drive like a normal person. We're not vampires, Kai. If you put us in the middle of a metal sandwich, we're going to bleed and _die_. So much for your plans for vengeance and world domination. The whole coven is going to have a good laugh over how Kai Parker survived nearly twenty years in a Prison World only to die in a car crash like a muggle."

He reached over and pinched her. Hard. Siphoning magic out of her in a short, spiteful burst that made her pass out.

Liv came to a few minutes later, according to the clock on the dash. The needle of the speedometer was closer to normalcy.

Beside her, Kai was… still an ugly knot of even uglier emotions. But he seemed to have settled down to steaming, not boiling.

Well, Liv was this close to boiling over herself, and she lashed out with magic at him.

He deflected it back without lifting a hand from the wheel.

He laughed, and it sent shivers down her spine. "Just give me a reason, Olivia." His voice was calm and smooth as a cobra's hiss.

She bit down every angry, spiteful thing she wanted to throw at him – what was the use? – and turned back to the Spell book in her lap.

The sooner she got to the end of this barely mutually beneficial alliance, the better.

Occasionally throwing a wary eye at Kai and also the speedometer, Liv flicked through the Grimoire, skipping over the more interesting bits, and rapidly scanning through the entries that looked more like journals than spells, or magical research. Sheila Bennett's Grimoire was a detailed and organised trove of information and several fascinating spells caught her eye. But she tried not to get too distracted – by the rest of the book, and by her brother's maniacal driving.

Although, the latter improved somewhat after their next rest stop. Liv took the initiative of getting some salty snacks and soda for both of them. His mood brightened a bit after he finished the first three bags of pork rinds.

Ninety minutes to Whitmore and battling against a slight headache, Liv finally found something worthwhile.

"Yes," she whispered.

"What?" he asked, anxiously.

"Jo's name _finally_ pops up again, in one of the very last pages. You were right – there was a Concealment spell. I'll have to check back through this whole book to find out which one, exactly. But just before she died, Sheila placed it again on Jo, with one – no two – changes. She anchored it to a magical object – not her own self – I guess she knew she was dying and she wanted to be sure the magic didn't die with her." Liv frowned. "When Bonnie came back, she said she saw –"

"What was the second change?" Kai snarled.

Liv recoiled; his sudden return to his earlier black mood had been completely unexpected.

Anger she could deal with. It was his unpredictability that really frightened her.

"I asked you a question," he said with a tone that clearly indicated that he wasn't going to ask again.

Liv swallowed. "Sh- Sheila turned the spell on Jo from a simple Concealment spell to a Protection spell. It's a reactive spell. If anyone tries to harm Jo by magic, it activates."

"What happens if it activates? What kind of protection kicks into place?"

"It's hard to make out the symbols here. I need to check my translator. I've got this App in my phone-"

The car swerved across the road. Horns blared and people screamed as it narrowly dodged impact and came to a stop on the shoulder.

Liv covered her face with her hands and shuddered.

Kai had already pulled the book to himself, and was muttering over the page. After a while, he reached into the glove compartment for a pad of paper and pen and started sketching. Liv put down her hands to watch him. It hit her then: he was decoding the symbols completely off head.

Despite herself, she was impressed, not that she would ever say so.

"The problem with having your own magic is that it makes you stupid," Kai muttered as he finished the sketch with a swoop and tossed the paper at her.

She was about to spit out an angry retort when she realized what he had drawn. She gasped.

"I'm going to take a wild guess and say, based on my past dealings with our great coven leader, that when he realized I had flown the coop, one of the first things he did was to make sure I couldn't merge with Jo. And what simpler and surer way to do that than to make sure there was no Jo for me to merge with?"

Liv said nothing. She wasn't stupid enough to defend Joshua Parker in front of Kai.

Nor was she particularly inclined to. What Kai said was absolutely true.

She knew this because she had been right beside her father when he tried to find his oldest daughter.

And end her life.

Liv mentally shook her head. And Luke still wondered why she had no loyalty to their creepy coven.

"Based on your guilty silence, I think my guess was right," Kai said now. He sounded almost happy. He tapped his sketch. "We don't need to know the type of spell Sheila Bennett put on her. I think we already have a good idea where Sissy must be."

* * *

Caroline had barely parked the car in the Lot of their dorm before Bonnie was rushing upstairs, flying up the steps, through the doors, and then across their room as she frantically raked through her closet, throwing clothes on the bed.

"I thought you had packed before we left Mystic Falls?"

"I just remembered that I don't have enough formal wear! I'm meeting coven elders. I can't wear clubbing clothes-"

"Bonnie calm down. You're panicking over nothing. You packed everything before we left Mystic Falls. Remember, I was there? Now go freshen up before you leave. The taxi should be here soon."

Bonnie nodded, biting her lip, then disappeared into the bathroom.

Caroline dropped her own suitcase on her bed, opened it and pulled out the brown envelope at the top. She held it in her hand for a moment, staring.

The visit to Sheila's had shaken Bonnie. The younger girl had met Caroline at the station, completely freaked out and all but begged Caroline to leave Mystic Falls there and then. Caroline had barely managed to convince Bonnie to come home and gather their things. Then they finally got going and were half way out of the town, when Bonnie suddenly insisted on going back to check on her grandmother's house. Whatever she found there, while Caroline had watched hesitantly from the doorway, had shaken her up even more. She was practically in tears as she casted protection spells, wards through the house. She finally locked up, fumbling over the keys twice, and the two girls piled into the car and left for Whitmore.

All through out the four-hour trip to Whitmore, Bonnie had been completely withdrawn, going silent for hours, and barely holding her own end of the few pathetic attempts Caroline made at conversation.

Being in her grandmother's old house had clearly taken a massive toll on Bonnie and now, Caroline felt so guilty that she had left her to go through that alone. She should have insisted on accompanying her.

And maybe if she had, Liz wouldn't have had a chance to corner Caroline and give her this explosive secret.

Because Bonnie was clearly not ready for the bombshell in Caroline's hands.

So this would have to wait.

Nodding to herself, she tucked the envelope back in her box just as Bonnie came back in.

"The cab called. It's downstairs," she said. She looked a little better. Unless you stared hard at her eyes, which were strangely wild.

Caroline gave her a hug. "Have fun in Orlando. Take pictures. Try to go to the beach."

"I'll be back by next morning."

"Oooh, see who's jetting across the country like a celebrity."

Normally, Bonnie would have shoved her for that. Instead she just clung harder, hugging as if she didn't want to let go.

They were both crying when they finally parted. "Don't…" _don't die on me_ , Caroline felt like saying.

Bonnie nodded, all the same, as if she understood.

Then she was gone.

Caroline sighed, watching through the window until Bonnie was in the cab and it was pulling out of the Lot. Then she went to find that envelope.

For a moment, she stared pensively at the logo of the Mystic Falls's Sherriff's office on it, and her eyes ran over the keynotes that were already burned in her brain.

 _Case #C200409-721A_

 _Deceased: Rudy Hopkins_

 _Date of Death: September 7, 2004_

 _Cause of Death: Vehicular Manslaughter._

All the keynotes were typed. All except two words, scribbled in Sheriff Forbes' familiar writing, beside the word 'Manslaughter':

 _Possible Homicide._

Caroline pulled out her phone and tapped some buttons.

She didn't bother saying hello.

"The way I figure it, you and your brother owe Bonnie big. It's time for you to pay."

* * *

They drove straight through the campus and kept on through the town until they were parking in the lot of Whitmore Hospital. Before Kai stepped out of the vehicle, he cast a modified version of his twin tracking spell again.

The link between him and Josette snapped taut.

For the first time that day, Kai felt almost content.

They walked through the hospital doors and into the world of crying brats and agony, as the doctors and nurses fluttered through the mangle of human suffering milling through the building. The stench of antiseptic and the staccato of various beeping machines almost pulled him out of the spell.

He led the way, Liv trailing behind him. He was only half-aware of his surroundings, the other half of his consciousness on the magical cord that was drawing him nearer and nearer to his twin; it was Liv that wriggled them through the inconveniences of Access Control, Security and nosey nurses.

"We're in the ICU, Kai," she murmured, sounding nervous when they passed through the doors – that had Intensive Care Unit written in bold over them – and entered an area of the hospital that was even more sterilized, even more punctuated with those infernally beeping devices.

"Congratulations on your reading comprehension, Liv," he hissed as he turned down the second hallway on the left. _This one_.

A nurse stepped in their path and he left Liv behind to deal with her, every thought in his head now was of getting to the end of this rope and finding his twin.

Liv caught up with him as he stood before the door.

He stood there for some time.

Kai had been waiting for this moment for the past eighteen years and now that it was here…

He put his hand to the door and it seemed to freeze there.

It was Liv that, with one indescribable glance at him, pushed the door open.

That was where they found their sister, apparently having an extended nap while being monitored via tubes and wires.

According to the chart at the foot of her bed, her name was Dr. Josie Laughlin, and she was, strangely enough, a consultant in this very hospital. Kai stared at the dark haired woman lying on the bed, her lashes closed over eyes that he knew were the same shade as his own – and for the first time he could remember, his knees shook and he barely reached the chair beside her bed before he collapsed into it.

Dr. Josie Laughlin. A.k.a. Josette Parker. A.k.a. Sissy.

After years of being afraid he would forget how she'd look and he'd never be able to find her and punish her and claim his birth-right through her, Kai realized now that he would have recognised this woman anywhere in the world. Not because she looked like the twin sister that he had known all his life, whose face he had known before he had learnt the shape of his own.

He recognised Josette because she looked like _their mother_.

And _that_ was when it hit him.

 _Eighteen years_.

It had become harder and harder to conceptualise time in a world where it never altered. And even when he had got back, seen the drastic changes in the world, seen that his _baby sister was practically his age_ , it still hadn't quite sunk in, not really.

It took this - seeing the difference in years between his twin and himself – to bring the weight of eighteen years crashing down on his shoulders.

Liv turned worried eyes from the chart in her hands, to the brother on the chair, looking like if he was going to throw up…

To the sister on the bed, in a coma.

"She's been like this for two months, Kai. Nobody has been able to figure out what's wrong with her. But we know. This is Sheila's spell. Jo's not going to wake up until _you_ 're dead."

* * *

 **A/N** : So like I said earlier, this was posted as 2 different chapters and now they're united.


	9. Bloodlines

**9**

 **Bloodlines**

"Hello Jo, believe it or not I missed you. All that time in 1994, I wondered what I'd say and do when I see you again. And now here we are. Me with my hot twenty two year old bod and you… well, looking like _Mom._ Who says Prison World didn't have any perks?"

Dr. Jo Laughlin, formerly known as Josette Parker, was silent.

Kai tipped his head to the side, as if he was listening, then nodded. "Yep. It seems like it was just yesterday you were stabbing me in the back, shattering all my dreams. I planned on returning the favour, you see. Not your literal back, of course. An ear, some fingers… I really wanted to yank out that lying tongue of yours, too but then you won't be able to say the merging spell."

Liv made a horrified sound.

Kai glanced over at her, then turned back to Jo, shaking his head. "I know, right?" he said. "What a brat this one turned out to be. Bet you wish you had let me bash her brains in with that bat."

"This is creepy," Liv hissed. "You are creepy."

Kai sighed. "Do you mind, Liv? I haven't seen my twin in eighteen years. We have a lot of catching up to do."

"She's in a goddamn coma! You're talking to someone who's been on life support for," she grabbed the patient chart at the end of the hospital bed and shook it at him, "two months!" Her voice was trembling.

"Hey!" Kai gasped in a false whisper. "Do you mind not throwing around words like _coma_ at Sissy, right now?" He turned back to Jo. "So insensitive!"

Liv seemed to choke on a retort. Or a scream.

Kai supposed she had some cause to be frustrated. To be honest, he had been at first. But he had got over it. So Sheila Bennett decided to screw him over one last time? Good for her. But every spell had a loophole and magical siphoner that he was, he was going to suck this one right out.

At the moment though, he just wanted to hang out with his long-lost sister. Jo had always been a good listener while awake but now that she was in a coma, her listening skills were unparalleled. With a little of Liv's magic and a little of Kai's ingenuity, the two siblings had wriggled unlimited access to Jo's private ward in the intensive care unit.

Looking down on Josette, who to all intents and purposes just looked like if she was having an extended nap, Kai almost felt sentimental. He had always been fond of Sissy. It would have been nice to catch up with her life. Her MedPlus profile page had been full of glowing, exciting accomplishments. It looked like she did pretty well for herself after abandoning her magic and her coven. While he was reliving day after identical day circa 1996, Jo was was living her life on her own terms and having a ball of it.

 _Almost_ felt sentimental.

"This was a waste of time." There were actual tears in Liv's voice. "I've betrayed my coven, my father, my brother to help you and for what? You two can never merge. I'll be forced to merge with Luke and I'll almost definitely die so that he and Bonnie can rule the coven together."

There was a cheap complimentary pen lying by Jo's beside, Whitmore Hospital engraved on it. It was a good weight, he felt as he tossed it in the air and caught it. It tapered to its tip. Not as good as a throwing knife but Kai had perfected the art of weaponizing ordinary house-hold objects. He tossed it again and threw it at Olivia's head.

It cut across her cheek and drew a line of bright red blood.

"What the hell?!"

"Now that I've got your attention," he said calmly. "Kindly shut up."

"You don't get to treat me like this, Kai," she shrieked.

"Your negativity is fogging up my mojo."

Liv narrowed her eyes and only a sudden spike of magic alerted him in time to shift out of the way as the pen came flying back.

His eyes followed it and then he turned to smirk at her. "You missed, Liv-" and dodged a little too late. The second pen nicked his ear, and he felt wetness drop down his face.

He stood up at once and Liv raised both hands, freezing him.

Her blue eyes were sparking with anger and fear. "You keep forgetting that we're supposed to be a team. You're useless without my magic. And if I decide to walk out of here and tell Luke or Dad, it's over for you! So I mean it – stop treating me like some minion you can kick around when -"

Her words trailed to a gasp as he broke through her spell, faster than she had clearly expected.

Kai walked menacingly up to her and she backed away, her eyes scanning the room frantically for another weapon, her hands curled and ready to throw a desperate defensive hex.

He backed her right past her seat, then – he threw himself into it. Then he looked up at her and sighed heavily. "You know, Livvie, of all the kids you threw the worst tantrums. It used to drive me abso-effing-lutely insane. So let's do this. Give yourself a timeout. Go to a rave. Go to an orgy. Do whatever it is you need to do to get your head back in the game. And when you come back, we can talk strategy."

Liv glared at him, warily.

"Or better yet," Kai said with a wide grin, "I'll talk and you listen?"

He laughed out loud, watching her walk side-ways like a crab, as she tried to get to the door without turning her back at him. Smart girl, this one.

She finally reached the door, and he could practically read the thoughts emoting so strongly from her.

He stretched out his hand, paused long enough for Liv to tense, and then reached with magic. The two weaponized pens flew into his grasp.

He trailed the blood-stained tip of one down the side of his face. "Oh, and one last thing. Before you go running to confess all to your twinnie, I might need some of your notes on that Gemini Merge and Expression cocktail that you were planning on cooking last year."

Liv froze. "How did you know-"

"That you were going to use Bonnie Bennett to harness Expression magic to invoke a spell powerful enough to alter the Gemini twin merge spell so that twins can merge without one dying?" He sing-sang the question even as cold rage built within him, and he imagined using the two pens to shred Livvie's face into bits.

He let just a little of his anger show on his face and watched with satisfaction as Liv swallowed hard.

"Big brother is always watching."

* * *

Florida was a warm respite after the cold Virginia spring. The MacMillians lived in a palatial mansion right next to the waterfront. An intimidating looking steward received Bonnie and Luke and ushered them to the outdoor dining area. The two made themselves comfortable in the canopied dining table, and looked out the sea just a few metres away from them. A small group of waitstaff were standing in attendance. Their glasses were filled the moment they sat down.

Their hosts would arrive shortly, the steward informed them, and handed them a pair of menus.

Bonnie sipped on the glass of white wine and tried to avoid Luke's probing gaze.

"You OK there, Bon?" he asked now, reaching over to squeeze her hand reassuringly. "During the flight, you were really spaced out."

"I was just tired," she murmured. "It was a long drive from Mystic Falls and we made the return trip in less than a day."

"Yeah, it's crazy just how much you have to do," he said. It had been bugging him for weeks. "Look, I can put pressure on Dad to shift this thing. You just got back for heaven's sake. You need time to –"

"No," Bonnie said, slamming her glass firmly on the table, her voice raised to almost a shout.

Then she threw a nervous glance at the well-trained quartet of servers who were standing a discreet distance away, and sank low in her seat. "Sorry," she muttered.

Luke had to fight the urge to laugh. It was endearingly how easily embarrassed she was. "Well, since you're so eager, I'm not going to put a damper on things," he said easily. He reached for a menu and flipped through it. "Can you believe there's an actual menu?"

Bonnie shook her head, eyes round. "We've been to some fancy coven houses but this one really takes the cake. What do these guys do? Alchemy? Treasure-seekers? Or," she made a face, "regulations?"

"Oil."

Her glass was half-way to her lips and it stayed there as she stared at him in surprise. "Oil?"

Luke laughed. "Yeah. They got their money the old-fashioned mundane way. Of course, it helps if you've fine-tuned the spellwork for finding the best reservoirs. Not very exciting, is it? Now," he turned back to the menu at hand, "what do we eat?"

Bonnie opened up hers, pretended to give it some serious thought. "I'm feeling like … the most pretentious and expensive thing on the menu?"

"Mmmm… Now I know we're meant to be. Because I was thinking of exactly the same thing."

They grinned at each other across the table.

It was a running joke between them. As part of their official Gemini-approved courtship, the pair went on weekly 'dates' which were completely funded by the abundant coven cash accounts. They took turns looking for the most outrageously expensive places to eat. Bonnie, at least, made it a point of duty to go clothes-shopping for every date.

(That aspect of her engagement at least was fully Caroline-approved.)

"We really have to try and finish it this time, you know," he said mock-seriously, after the server who took their order had left, "this isn't coven funds we're wasting away."

"Speak for yourself," Bonnie said brightly. "I don't see a problem here. I have lots of room to put it all in."

He grinned uneasily as he sipped his own drink. It had been months since she returned and she was a far cry from the drenched, skinny creature they had found in that cave. But she was still underweight, fragile-looking, and a far cry from the vibrant yet gentle girl that he had grown up with.

One of the stewards popped open a new bottle.

Bonnie jumped.

Luke covered her hand with his own. "It's OK, Bonnie. Deep breaths."

She had closed her eyes when the cork popped and she kept them closed as she did as he said, her fingers clenching around his own. After a while, she opened her eyes.

At the sight of the stark pain in her face, it was all Luke could do not to walk around the table and hug her tightly. He squeezed her hand.

"It's OK, Bonnie. You'll be OK," was all he could say.

Bonnie bit her lip. "H-has there been any word of … your brother? Is Joshua any closer to getting him?"

Luke shook his head. "Not yet. But he's drawing power from all the Elders. All eyes are on the ground, hunting for him. We have members in continents across the world. We're going to find him, Bonnie."

"There were spells that he invented. He… he showed some to me. I think he knows a way of cloaking his presence, not just physically but magically as well."

Luke tried not to start at that. Once in a while, she'd say something like that. Something that would pique his curiosity, make the need to poke and prod and find out more about her experience in the 1994 Prison World.

Of course, Bonnie had given the Elders a full account of what happened after she died on Halloween. Stripped of Expressions magic, flung into a Prison World – with the vampire Katherine, by accident not design. Survived a month alone with the vampire, then three months with the Prisoner. Then she recovered her magic and tried to find a way to escape from the Prison World without carrying back two mass murderers.

She hadn't.

Katherine Pierce had escaped by trickery a full month before Bonnie – and the Prisoner – left the 1994 Prison World.

That was her story, painted with broad strokes. But the shadows in her eyes, the way her formerly bright, avid personality had become quiet, melancholy, and the nightmares that had plagued her while she recovered in Portland – that, Luke would swear, still plagued her back in Whitmore… They all hinted at a larger story, a darker story buried beneath those strokes.

And he'd have known this even if he hadn't already heard Katherine's version of events.

But he needed to be patient. He couldn't push her to confide in him before she was ready. He believed that one day, she would. In their own way, they loved each other very much. Of course, Bonnie was not his type – a constant source of amusement to both of them. And even though she never came out to say it, he'd observed enough of her crushes in high school and college to know that his medium height, bleached blonde everyday looks did not match up to the string of tall, dark-haired, broody boys she seemed to fancy.

But they had known each other since they were twelve and ten. Luke still remembered the skinny, sad girl clinging fiercely to her beloved Miss Cuddles during that first family luncheon between the Parkers and the Bennetts. The twins had lured her into the garden and tried to get her to do magic. She thought they were making fun of her and had burst into tears. Her tears had turned into peals of laughter when Luke made Miss Cuddles dance the Hammer.

After that, she was always in their lives. And they had quickly discovered that not only was she a quick study and had easily become better at magic than both of them, she was also kind, sweet, funny and loyal.

Luke was happy with who he was. But once in a while, he wished he could have been someone different. Someone who could have fallen in love with Bonnie Bennett and whom she could have fallen in love with.

But all the same, Luke didn't have to be in love with Bonnie to _love_ Bonnie; and love her, he did. He always would, and he would always protect her.

So now Luke gripped her hand tightly and promised her, "Malachai is not going to get anywhere near you, Bonnie. I promise."

She nodded, her eyes shining and turned her hand in his grip so they were holding hands.

They both felt the auras of the two older witches at the same time.

An elderly couple who were a study in contrasts – the man with a shock of white hair and dark brown skin, the woman with ravenblack hair, streaked with grey, and white skin suffering from a bad sunburn – appeared before them.

"Oh look at them, Jude," the woman cooed, ignoring Bonnie's and Luke's outstretched hands to swoop down and envelope them in a hug that smelt of perfume, seawater and flour, "Aren't they just adorable?"

* * *

The food came promptly and they tucked in with gusto – it did taste amazing – and Jude and Dinah Macmillian quizzed the younger couple about all manner of things from their college majors, to their easiest mental spells to their sports teams.

Or rather, Dinah did most of the quizzing. Jude was of the strong and silent variety. Although his eyes did brighten up and he went on a ten minute rant about the superiority of the Orlando Rockets when Luke said he supported that team.

Bonnie wondered if Luke did support that team, or he had done his homework on Jude and just said what would score points.

Like the twins, and every other young Gemini witch, Bonnie had been initiated into council duties from the moment she turned sixteen and her engagement to Luke had been made official. Up until she had moved across the country to attend the same high school with Caroline, Bonnie had sat in during council meetings, participated in mage conventions and magical games, been invited to coven social events and even partaken of the occasional hunt or battle between the Gemini and other supernatural elements. She had not done a lot of the latter, though, because Joshua Parker did not want to risk her. At least not before she had given his lineage heirs.

But unlike every other young Gemini witch, Bonnie and the twins had been trained specifically to lead. So they didn't just learn magic, they learnt politics. So long before she was officially initiated at sixteen, Bonnie already knew the names and roles of the major houses and clans in the coven, their strengths and weaknesses, old conflicts, old alliances, and the importance of managing forever shifting loyalties and interests. She didn't do too badly. Joshua and a few Elders had singled her out for praise several times the few time she had had to preside over the council and handle a particularly delicate situation.

But neither she nor Liv were as good as Luke.

The MacMillians had never shown up on her radar because they technically were not a powerful family – at least no magically. They were also a rather eccentric lot. Unlike most of the Gemini who were based in and around Portland, the family had been in Florida for almost a century and showed no signs of moving soon. Now that she was here, she could understand their importance though. They were stinkingly rich.

"My family has Bennett blood, by the way," Di said apropos of nothing. "That's the reason why Jude was so eager to marry me, you know, don't let his little speeches deceive you. Your family is lucky to snag yourself a Bennett," she gave Luke a wink.

Bonnie choked a little on her veal.

Luke tapped her back encouragingly. "You OK?"

"Yes, of course," Bonnie murmured and sipped more wine.

"You can see it in our kids, too. Our Josie is amazing. Smartest witch her age. You can see that her bloodline is strong. So is Marcus and Don."

"We're one of the few families to marry a Bennett witch. The only other ones were the Huangs and the Cramers. They've outlived some of the oldest Gemini families. Now you know why."

"Because of their Bennett lineage," Bonnie said dully, unnecessarily.

Luke shot her a worried glance.

"Damn straight," Di cooed. "I'm betting your Dad is over the moon that he snagged Sheila Bennett's grand-daughter. Must have been like Christmas and his birthday when Abby showed up with Bonnie, right? Just fell into his lap like that."

"If you see the hoops her Daddy made me go through," Jude grumbled. "And the Bennett blood is so far up her line… I mean look at the woman, she doesn't even look black! But there's no hiding Bennett magic, is there? You can always sniff it out."

As if on cue, both of them sniffed in Bonnie's general direction, their nostrils flaring.

Bonnie, who had long stopped eating, just stared at them in mute rage.

"Is it true that your dad, Rudy Hopkins also had some Bennett blood in his line?" Di prodded. "Because if he did, that would explain so much…"

Bonnie stood up at once. Without a word, she marched back indoors.

* * *

"OK, well that could have been a disaster, but I salvaged it," Luke declared when she returned half an hour later.

The MacMillians had cleared out. Something to do with a board meeting, although he suspected that Bonnie's abrupt disappearance hadn't helped. Luke managed them well, if he said so himself, and after finishing the meal, they had left an invitation for the couple to visit their home with their first born as soon as possible.

Yeah, Luke was going to keep that particular request to himself.

Bonnie sat down at the table, grabbed her glass and gestured for more wine.

Luke covered her hand on the glass with his own. "Bonnie, what's wrong?"

"What's _wrong_?" Bonnie sputtered. "Did you hear the way they were talking about me? Like I'm some sort of brood mare?"

"And like I'm some sort of stud, of the breeding variety. It's not the first time, Bonnie."

"So? That makes it OK."

"It's our job to manage the Elders. You've never had a problem with it before now please tell me what's going on Bonnie."

Her hand was shaking under his grip. She tried to pull away but he held firm.

"It's all rather crass and barbaric, I know, but hey, it could have been worse, right?" He tipped his head, tried to make her share his grin. "At least we have each other. We've got each other's backs in this."

"I know."

"So spit it out. What's really going on in that head of yours?"

She pulled her hand out of his, looking up, and in a moment, he too shifted back to make room for the server who had appeared. Luke waited impatiently as Bonnie's glass was filled, she took a large gulp, and then had her glass refilled again. Luke raised his eyebrow a little. He had never known her to drink this much.

What was going on?

She finally put the glass down, placed it carefully on its holder, her head bent over the table.

When the server had slipped back into the corner, she finally lifted her gaze.

Her eyes were like the sea in a storm.

"I want in."

Luke blinked. "In what?"

"The plan to catch and imprison Kai. I want in."

Luke sat back, shock rippling through him. "Why would you…? I thought you wanted to stay as far away from this as possible." Was this it? What had been bothering her? Revenge against Kai?

"Why?" Bonnie lashed at him. "What did Katherine say?"

"Nothing I haven't already told you. There's not much difference between your story and hers, although she did significantly play down her betrayal of you. Made it seem more of expedience than cold-blooded abandonment."

"You're lying. She told you something more, didn't she?"

Sadness washed over him. "What more could she have told me?"

Her eyes wavered with indecision and he tried to reign in his own impatience. He wished she would just open up to him…

"I saw Kai in Mystic Falls."

"What?" Her words were like a bolt of lightning and he sat up in shock. Of all the places, they expected his brother to be hiding out in, Virginia had not crossed their minds.

Bonnie went into a brief narration of encountering Kai in her grandmother's house. When she finished, Luke stared hard at her, noticing the way she refused to meet his eyes, and wondered at what she had so obviously left out.

"He has my grandmother's grimoires now."

"That's bad. That's really bad," he said heavily, feeling worry fall on his shoulders and rest there.

"How bad could it get?" Bonnie asked, her face wreathed with anxiety. "What could he be planning to use them for?"

"I don't know. They're Bennett spell-books. Covens would kill – have killed to get their hands on them. Who knows what Kai is looking for in there? Who knows what Kai could find?"

"I want in," she said again, and her voice was as steely as a gaze. "In the plot to catch him. Because clearly whatever the coven is doing, it's not doing enough."

"Bonnie…"

"I mean it, Luke."

Luke gave her a level look. "There are talks that imprisoning him might not be enough this time. They may not just catch him. They may…"

"Kill him?" Something rippled in her face. It looked like fear. But for whom?

"Still want in?" He pressed. "Would you have the stomach if it came to that?"

The ripple, whatever it was, cleared. Bonnie returned his gaze with one that was even grimmer. "Yes. Whatever Katherine may or may not have told you, there's nothing I would want more than to see Kai Parker gone, one way or the other."

* * *

They were waiting to pick up their luggage at the Whitmore Airport. Luke kept shooting Bonnie worrying glances and after a while, she asked him to help her claim hers while she went to the restroom.

She freshened up at the sink. Halfway through washing her hands, she stopped and pressed her hands flat on the sink, taking in deep shallow breaths, as nausea threatened to overwhelm her.

 _They may not just catch him. They may…_

 _Kill him._

She stared at herself in the mirror for a long moment. Then she took another deep breath and splashed cold water on her face. In a few moments, she was done and she stepped out of the room.

Waiting behind the door was a tall dark-haired man with eerily light blue eyes. The cold aura radiating from his skin would have been enough to send her hackles rising, her defensive shields locking into her skin and magic pouring into her hands.

"Hello BonBon," he said.

The last time she had seen the vampire Damon Salvatore, he had almost murdered her to 'demotivate' her from finding the Cure for Elena Gilbert.

He took a step towards her – and landed on his knees. Her hand was raised up as she split his skull with a series of the most powerful, blood-curling aneurysms she could muster.

"Hey! Hey, wait, stop!"

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't just snap your neck and find a good stake."

Bonnie had been having a bad day. Actually a bad couple of months. The Salvatore vampires had once been the bane of her existence. Staking one of them would not solve all her problems. But it sure would make her feel better.

"Caroline sent me!" He managed.

She paused hurting him, so that he could hear her next words. "Then I guess I'll go give her a headache, after I kill you."

He raised his hands frantically. "OK, wait. She didn't exactly send me. I'm not actually supposed to talk to you at all but…"

Bonnie raised her hands threateningly, and he yelped. "Wait! I can help you! I know you have questions. I can get the answers for you."

Her hand was still up, but only to keep him frozen. "Questions to what?"

"Your father's death."

Her magic swept at him like a storm, picking him up from the ground and crashing into the wall, hanging there. "What the hell is wrong with you? That is not even funny."

"I'm not lying. I swear. Ask Caroline. I can help you."

Bonnie snapped her hand and he fell to the floor with a broken neck.

Then she stormed out of the bathroom.

* * *

A/N: Surprise! Betcha thought you'd seen the last of this fic, hadn't you?

LOL. Anyway, thanks every single person that has reviewed this fic since the months it's been updated and kept sending encouraging words, asking for more and letting me know that there are so many readers who are invested in it. It wasn't easy but you guys motivated me to finally, finally figure out a way to detangle the knot I had written the story into. So now it's all steam ahead for this baby. Once again, thanks everyone and please keep the reviews coming. They do make a difference.

Also for Original Sin readers: I'm really sorry for the 'false' update. I was doing some housekeeping for that story because I'll need to take it all down and repost it soon. I didn't know that FFnet would still send alerts for chapters I was deleting. I did finish the story a few months back, but I realized that it lacked something, so I'm in the process of re-writing now which I hope to complete this year so … fingers crossed.

And for Long Shadows – thanks so much to everyone who's read and enjoyed and reviewed the last chapter! 16K words is no joke but I felt it was the least I could do after the long month's wait and you guys really made me feel it was worth it. Just a reminder to anyone who missed it that there's an outtake from chapter 8 that I posted as 'Chapter 13'. For those who like keeping tabs of clues and stuff, it's important plot-wise, so if you missed it, now you know. J

Thanks again, dear readers. Let me know what you think of this chapter. Until the next time. (Hopefully next week). Cheers!


	10. What Lies Beneath

**10**

 **What Lies Beneath**

* * *

 _ **June 2011**_

 _"You, Bonnie Bennett, are the living embodiment of every bad thing that has ever happened to me."_

 _Perhaps the words might have hurt her nine years ago. Or eight. Or five._

 _But now, Bonnie just cocked her head to the side, and stared hard at the monster that bore her childhood friend's face, and wondered clinically what was the quickest way to get out of this unpleasantness._

 _"I'm sorry about Jeremy. I truly am. And Jenna… and Uncle John… But you can't really believe that any of those things were my fault."_

 _"If you had been here, they'd still be alive. If you had been in Mystic Falls, instead of traipsing on West Coast. Why do you still come back here, anyway? To taunt us? To show off how powerful and connected you are? To show off how perfect your life is?"_

 _Laughter burst out of Bonnie – suddenly, incongruously. But she really couldn't help it. What a ridiculous thing for anyone to say about her life._

 _"You really think my life is perfect?" she gasped._

 _"It would be if you didn't whine about it all the time. Oh 'Mommy didn't love me and left me with a coven that taught me magic and kept me safe.' ; 'Oh Grams didn't fight to keep me in this wretched, haunted, backwater, wreck of a town.'; 'Oh my Dad died and left me all alone. I mean, he was barely around when he was alive. He spent all that time travelling, and coming home late, and I practically lived at my Grandma's. But boo fucking hoo, he's gone and I'm so, so, so sad'-"_

 _"Watch it-" Bonnie said, her voice dropping in degrees. The small fraction of earlier amusement have vanished now. The urge to laugh was being fast replaced by something more lethal._

 _"'Cos let's all pretend he was such a great dad, and you two had such a close relationship…"_

 _"Elena, I swear…"_

 _"… and not that he avoided you as much as he could because, just like for me, you were a reminder for him of his bad luck. A reminder of the woman who abandoned him and left him to raise her child. A reminder of the biggest tragedy of his life-"_

 _Her voice cut off, her poisonous words sticking in her throat as the bones in her neck fused together. The vampire clawed at her throat as Bonnie advanced on her, her right fist clenched at her side, her mouth spitting out curses as cold rage pounded in her chest._

 _"Shut. your. mouth," Bonnie hissed._

 _Elena couldn't speak, but she could grin, her already twisted face distorting even further._

 _Then the grin broke as Bonnie started pushing aneurysms into the vampire's brain. Elena fell to her knees, one hand on her head now, while the other stayed on her throat, as she choked on her screams._

 _Bonnie was standing over the vampire now, watching the pathetic whimpering creature, and her anger dulled into disgust so strong, it was almost pity._

She's pathetic. Completely dependent on everyone but herself. I thought she was stronger than this, stronger than Caroline but I was wrong. She's weak. She couldn't survive three months as a vampire without turning off her switch.

 _Bonnie took in a deep shaky breath and raised her arms, drawing magic into her body. Her grip on the vampire's throat shifted to the bones of her spine and Elena's whimpers turned into guttural cries._

Killing her will be an act of mercy.

 _"Stop! Witch – argh!"_

 _Bonnie started, so caught up in her thoughts that she barely felt the vampires bearing down on her._

 _Her magic did, though, her shields raising up on trained instinct._

 _That was the first time Bonnie met the Salvatore brothers – flying through the air like scarecrows in suits, until they crashed against the trees and collapsed onto the ground in a tangle of broken limbs._

 _Behind them, Caroline stood in her prom dress, her arm stretched out beseechingly._

 _"Bonnie, don't do this."_

 _The pleading in her friend's voice almost moved Bonnie, but she was resolved._

 _"Someone needs to," Bonnie said quietly._

 _"She's your friend… your best friend…"_

 _Bonnie shook her head, and tears stung her eyes. "The Elena that was my friend was a good, kind person. A strong person. A person who would never choose to become a monster, no matter how bad life got. A person who would never turn off her humanity switch. I don't know who this person is… but she has to be stopped." Her hand flexed. Elena's cries had stopped. The vampire now lay still on the ground._

 _Bonnie's magic was creeping towards its heart._

"But she didn't turn it off!" _Caroline cried desperately. "She didn't! That was Damon! Elena was sirebonded to him, and he is the one who made her to turn it off."_

 _Bonnie's magic stilled. She stared at Caroline in shock._ "What?"

 _"You are right._ Elena _would never have chosen to be this, to do this. And she didn't_ choose _to do this. She didn't have a choice, Bonnie. He took it from her. If you kill her for this, then you're punishing her for someone else's decision, someone else' crime."_

 _Bonnie's hand fell to her side. She staggered to the prone body of her once-friend, and she stopped. She swayed on her feet, shock rushing through her body as the enormity of what she had almost done hit her._

 _She would have fallen herself if Caroline had not rushed forward to catch her._

* * *

That was the day of the Mystic Falls Homecoming Dance. The day that Bonnie had finally appreciated the enormity of the damage that the Salvatore brothers had wrecked in her friends' lives. Having been away from her hometown for so long, only seeing Caroline and Elena during brief holidays, spread thinner and thinner over the years, she had been unaware of just how bad things had gotten since the advent of Damon and Stefan Salvatore to Mystic Falls.

When she returned to Portland, she had gone straight to Joshua and petitioned him to send Gemini Envoys, the elite witches who carried out most of the coven's missions, to destroy the vampires.

For a long time, Bonnie had known that she was Joshua Parker's favourite. The tragedy that had taken away half of his children had left him a cold, closed man. He raised Luke and Leia like young apprentices, not like his own children. He had no affection left for his blood. But with Bonnie, he could be kind, could be a true father. And in turn, even though he would never replace Rudy Hopkins in Bonnie's heart, she had grown to love the old Gemini leader. She rarely asked him for anything because she knew he would deny her nothing.

He denied her this.

No matter how much she pleaded, no matter how articulately she made her case, listing all the events and the monsters that the Salvatores had heralded into Mystic Falls - the answer remained the same.

No.

Bonnie was bitter. It was the first and only time that she quarreled with her guardian. She shunned him. She refused to attend lessons and ceremonies. She was rude and cold.

It made no difference.

Eventually, she made her peace with his answer, with him, but the disappointment lingered.

So when Liv first started talking about Expression, about Silas, about the Cure for vampirism - Bonnie listened.

* * *

She was halfway down the airport hallway from the bathroom, when she made up her mind.

She turned back.

Damon Salvatore was still lying in a heap on the bathroom floor, unconscious.

Bonnie knelt at his side, and stared down at him.

It would be easy to rip out his heart now. She won't even need magic.

She stretched out her hand and ripped out a lock of his hair. Then she got up, and left him there.

* * *

Caroline was just about to leave for her theatre group when Bonnie arrived at the dorm.

"Yay, you're back!" she squealed, giving Bonnie a warm hug.

When Bonnie didn't return it, she pulled back. "Are you OK?"

Bonnie stared hard into her friend's guileless blue eyes.

Damon Salvatore had to be lying. There was no way - _no way_ \- that Caroline would bring him and his brother back into her life after everything that had happened. After Bonnie had practically _died_ because of them.

Caroline could not betray her like that.

Could she?

"I met Damon Salvatore at the airport."

Caroline's face flashed through a dozen different emotions before it finally settled on wide-eyed shock. "What?"

"You won't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

"H-how… what… why would I know?" Caroline stammered, stepping backwards, walking agitatedly to her desk. "Why? Did he say something?"

Bonnie shrugged casually, even as her heart fell. "We barely spoke. He said he was glad I was back and he needed a favour. I gave him an aneurysm until he passed out, and walked away."

Visible relief crossed Caroline's face. "Good. Good."

"Yes," Bonnie said quietly. "Good."

* * *

The first thing Bonnie did after Caroline left, was to skim through friend's clothes until she found a strand of long yellow hair.

A few minutes later, Bonnie was searching through the rest of Caroline's things with a fine-toothed comb.

Caroline was lying to her. Her best friend since forever. The one person in the world from Bonnie's old life in Mystic Falls that was left. Her sister in all but blood.

Caroline was lying to her; and if she was, then Bonnie wanted to tell herself that Caroline had a good reason to. She needed to. And if not for the involvement of the Salvatores, that might just have been enough for Bonnie.

Because she had already too much going on in her life.

Her wedding.

Kai Parker.

The last thing Bonnie needed was the Salvatores in her life and the wake of destruction that followed them. Stefan and his schemes and his blood-soaked past. Damon and his vicious pettiness and his absolute amorality.

Bonnie had _died_ the last time she was involved with the Salvatores. How dare Caroline invite them back into Bonnie's life?

" _Your father's death. … I know you have questions. … I can help you._ "

What did that mean?

Her father's death? Rudy Hopkins had died in a road accident on his way back home one rainy night. He had taken a curve, spotted a deer, swerved, lost control of his car and driven into a tree trunk.

The coroner had told Bonnie and Sheila that his death had been instantaneous. Her father hadn't suffered.

Bonnie paused in the middle of ransacking Caroline's still unpacked luggage and sank, sitting, into her friend's bed.

Even now, after all these years, her heart still ached at the memory of her father's death. Of the loss of his life, of their time together. He had been a busy man, yes. There had been a lot of business trips, and she rarely saw him outside weekends. But he had loved her, fiercely, unconditionally. To Rudy Hopkins, Bonnie hadn't been a powerful young Bennett witch. She hadn't been someone he needed to inject fresh blood into his coven. She hadn't been a resourceful friend that would be a useful ally in dealing with the supernatural.

She had just been herself - just Bonnie. And when he died, 'just Bonnie' had died with him.

Now, Bonnie Bennett rubbed her hands over her dry face, wiping away the memories and the heartache, and tried to think.

Whatever it was that Caroline had shared with the Salvatores, it had to be something from her and Bonnie's recent trip to Mystic Falls. Now that Bonnie thought of it, Caroline had been strange on their way back. Bouts of extreme chattiness and moody silence in turns. Bonnie had been too wrapped up in her own head, in her own recent trauma to pay attention. But now, she realized that her friend must have had something on her mind.

And where else would Caroline get information about Bonnie's father's death than her mother, the Sheriff of the town?

Bonnie went back to Caroline's luggage.

So Liz Forbes had known something about Bonnie's father's death that she had kept from Bonnie herself. Lying to her by default. At least Caroline couldn't have known about it for very long. Bonnie could forgive her friend a few days's secrecy.

But she couldn't forgive Caroline taking said secrets to the Salvatores.

Half an hour later, she gave up. Whatever it was that Caroline had, she must have passed it on to the brothers. There was nothing incriminating in their dorm. Later, Bonnie will check her friend's car but she didn't hold out much hope for that.

Of course, Bonnie could have just told Caroline the truth - confronted her point-blank with her encounter with Damon and what he said. But Caroline didn't deserve an honest conversation. If she was going to go behind Bonnie's back and scheme with the Salvatores, then Bonnie was going to return the favour.

She went to her side of the room, and looked at her reading desk. After Caroline had left, and she found a strand of her hair, Bonnie had cleared her desk for a spell. Half a dozen candles lined up as a square on the perimeter of a map of Virginia that Bonnie had printed in the common room. On the map were two red dots. One was stationary, and the other was moving towards the first.

As Bonnie watched, the two dots met and mingled.

She peered at the map, chewing her lip thoughtfully. The cafe on the North side of campus was a good rendezvous spot. But what she needed was where the Salvatores were lodging while in Whitmore. Even if they were commuting from Mystic Falls - and from what Bonnie had seen of that town, she strongly doubted that - they would still want a place near campus.

' _Follow the blood.'_

The blood of the tracking spells she had made from Caroline's hair and Damon's hair.

The blood of the victims that the Salvatores would inevitably leave in their wake.

Bonnie pulled out her laptop and went to the campus security website. She smiled grimly at the pop alert.

Three animal attacks in 48 hours. Campus security is proposing a curfew.

' _Follow the blood.'_

Bonnie turned away from the gory police reports and pulled out her cell-phone. She was going to need help for this. Luke and Liv were out of the question. She was planning a wedding, for one, and it was all she had done to prove to Luke that she was capable of being included in the mission to find Kai.

Her heart thumped as Luke's words echoed in her head:

" _They may not just catch him. They may…"_

Bonnie shook her head, chasing away the sudden thick lump that filled her throat. She didn't have time for such nonsense.

She dialed Faye's and Melissa's numbers.

* * *

They had a second fitting scheduled for the next day. Bonnie didn't even think about the Liv vs Caroline problem until she showed up at the bridal shop, and found the two tall blondes in the waiting room. They were sitting in almost identical poses - arms and legs crossed, faces closed and eyes watching the other warily.

"Uh… hi…" Bonnie said, awkwardly.

Faye and Melissa, who were sitting on either side of Liv and Caroline like referees, were exchanging glances, their mouths twitching as they struggled against giggles.

"Hello, Bonnie," Liv said coolly, never once taking her eyes off Caroline. "Isn't this fun? Us five girls together?"

"Hi, Bonnie," Caroline said cheerily, eyeballing the blonde witch. "Thank goodness for auto-reminders, right? Because I haven't updated my calendar in days. Obviously."

"Don't …" Bonnie warned, raising her hand. "I'm having a … just don't."

Liv and Caroline turned from each other to look at her with concern.

"Bonnie, is everything alright?" Caroline asked.

"What's going on?" Liv demanded.

Faye and Melissa's glances went from amused to knowing.

Bonnie stared hard into Caroline's worried face and considered spitting out the truth there and then.

She shook her head mentally. "I'm getting married in less than… in a week!" Her yelp was genuine, as the lack of time left suddenly hit her. "How am I supposed to be alright?"

"That's what we're here for," Caroline said at once. "To help. All of us." She went back to glaring at Liv.

Liv glared right back. "You want to say something to me, Vampire?"

Caroline looked like if she was just bursting to. But one glance at Bonnie, and she pressed her lips firmly together.

Liv flipped her blonde curls back. "I didn't think so."

Bonnie sighed. It was going to be a long fitting.

As soon as Caroline stepped behind the fitting room doors, Melissa placed a travel size tin of lip balm on the magazine stand, and flickered her fingers over it as if she was sprinkling salt.

It ignited and a familiar odour filled the air.

"Pocket sage," she said with a grin, at the surprised looks on the faces of the other three witches. "Neat, huh?"

"Clever," Faye drawled. Then she leaned forward conspiratorially. "Any change on the map?"

Bonnie looked at each of them in dismay.

"What?" Melissa asked, confused. "Caroline can't hear us. The sage is better than a smokescreen spell because it will distract the mundane seamstresses from our conversation _and_ keep vampires from overhearing."

"Uh, guys, she means me," Liv said quietly. "I'm the one who shouldn't be listening in on this."

Bonnie flushed as the Gemini witch gave her a wry glance. The other two girls started.

"Oh," Melissa said, and looked acutely embarrassed.

Faye was more articulate about her confusion. "I thought you guys had made up? We've never excluded her from things like this before."

Bonnie sighed. Faye was right, of course, but she had wanted to keep this apart from the Gemini coven for as long as she could.

She still remembered how she had asked Joshua Parker to deal with the Salvatores and how he had refused. And Liv had been part of the whole mess with the Salvatores and Expression Magic and the Cure.

Yet, Liv had made it clear that there was no love lost between her and the Salvatore brothers while Caroline had not. Caroline had strongly believed that Stefan was the 'good' brother while Damon was the bad one, refusing to see that there was not much to choose from between the two.

Bonnie eyed Liv speculatively.

"I'll just leave," the blonde witch said abruptly, getting to her feet as she obviously mis-read Bonnie's glance.

"No," Bonnie said firmly. "Stay."

"Look. I get it." Liv smiled wryly. "You don't have to-"

"I want to," Bonnie insisted. "I might need your help in this, too."

With a reluctant sigh, Liv sat back.

Bonnie leaned forward. "I think I've found where they're staying. I triangulated the locations of their victims to an apartment building a half-hour's drive from campus. I have a plan…"

* * *

When Liv finished talking, her brother leaned back into the fast food booth with a heavy sigh. His face was solemn.

She fidgeted in her seat, fiddling with the straw of her drink. "Please don't tell me I made a mistake telling you?"

For a moment, he didn't say anything and her anxiety increased. Then he ran his hand through his hair with another sigh. "No, you did the right thing. It's just that it's one more thing to deal with… One more thing to lie about… to keep a secret…"

 _You have no idea_ , Liv thought wryly.

"We don't have to tell him, you know," she said tentatively.

He gave her a mocking glance. "Of course, we have to tell him. Father specifically instructed us to let him know if either brother ever tries to contact her again."

"Yes, but…"

"The last time Bonnie had anything to do with those vampires, she died, Olivia. Or have you forgotten?"

She bristled, hated his use of her full name. It was something he only did when he was annoyed with her. It was a clear sign that _he_ , at any rate,hadn't forgotten.

"Of course not," she snapped. "That's why I'm telling you now."

Faye had been right - in the past, Liv would have automatically been included in something like this. Liv had known the two girls longer, but it was Bonnie who became fast friends with them. Bonnie had always been closer to Luke than his sister but she had, for some vague 'girls-only' reason, included Liv, not him, in her friendship with the other girls. It had ended up helping their relationship - Bonnie's and Liv's - tremendously. With everyone else, there was baggage. For a long time, Caroline saw Liv as her rival for Bonnie's affection, loyalty and general pseudo-sistership; similarly, Liv saw Bonnie as her rival for Luke, her father, and the Gemini as a whole. They had grown past that, for the most of it, but the old scars were still there.

But Melissa and Faye were neutral territory. Neither Bonnie nor Liv could lay a greater prior claim to the girls. So it didn't bother Liv that Bonnie was closer to the girls, nor did Bonnie feel she needed to moderate her relationship with them to accommodate Liv. The two of them - Bonnie and Liv - generally got along better with those other two as a buffer.

But that was before … everything.

"Bonnie's only just started to trust me again," Liv said with a sigh. "Whatever you do, you can't let her know I told you about this."

"These things have a way of coming out no matter what you do," he said coldly.

Liv glared at him. For the first time, she realized how alike her two brothers could be.

"You do realize, don't you, that if Bonnie thinks I betrayed her, she'll never trust me again and next time something like this happens, I won't know to tell you?" she asked waspishly.

He threw money on the table and started gathering up his things. He gave his sister a stern gaze. "I'll tell Father that I saw Damon at the airport, did some checking around and found out what was going on. If Bonnie ever finds out the source, that's the story she'll be told."

"And you're OK with Bonnie thinking you betrayed her?"

"She didn't confide in me so there was nothing to betray," he said simply. "And besides, she knows that I love her, that I want to keep her safe. You don't have that benefit of the doubt."

Liv set her jaw and looked away.

She was going to let him leave without saying another word. But he had slid out of the booth and grabbed his jacket, when she broke.

"I did it for you, you know."

He paused.

"The whole Expression fiasco," Liv said hoarsely. "I did it to protect you. So I won't have to kill my brother sometime in the near future. How does that make me the monster in this story?"

Liv didn't think it was possible, but her brother's eyes grew colder. "I'm gonna ask you a question, Liv and I want a true answer."

Startled, she nodded.

"Suppose you had 10:0 odds of winning the merge… no, let's say 90:10 … no, let's say 60:40… Would you have risked so much to change our fate?"

Liv held his gaze for as long as she could.

Then she looked down at the table.

"No," Luke said quietly. "I didn't think so."

* * *

Bonnie's message came early the next morning. The buzz of her mobile woke Liv up from an uncomfortable sleep.

" _We're going at 0800hrs."_

Liv quickly deleted it, throwing a nervous glance at the hunched figure at her reading desk. She set her alarm discreetly, and pretended to go back to sleep.

"Booty call?" Kai drawled.

Liv sighed. She lifted her head to see that he hadn't even turned around to speak to her. To all intents and purposes, he was still nose-deep in the books before him. Which he probably was. Since they had returned from finding Josette, Kai had buried himself in the study of the Bennett Grimoires, barely eating or sleeping in his quest to find a loophole to undo Jo's sleeping curse.

Liv was just thankful that he hadn't recruited her in the effort. She knew that he believed that Sheila's magic could be undone. But it would be at the cost of very powerful, and probably dark magic.

Luke still hadn't forgiven Liv for the last time she played around by proxy with powerful, dark magic.

After the initial shock at his declaration in Jo's hospital room, Liv figured out that Kai must have found out about Bonnie's brief experiment with Expression from the girl herself during their time together in his 1994 Prison World. Liv had never really understood what happened between her oldest brother and her sort-of sister in their time together in his cell. Liv had been in disgrace then over the whole matter, and had been barred from the coven's interrogation of Katherine Pierce, and later from Bonnie's own testimony. Bonnie, of course, hadn't confided in her.

Liv couldn't, in her right mind, ask Luke either.

That left Kai…

She sat up in bed, watching him speculatively.

He threw a glance over his shoulder. "You can go, if you like. I won't judge."

It took her a moment to realize what he meant, then she made a face.

"Ugh, no. I wanted to ask…" And now she hesitated.

"The anticipation is killing me." He sounded absolutely bored. His focus was back on the two Grimoires spread open before him. A notepad was by his hand and he scribbled in it intermittently.

"What did Bonnie tell you about Expression magic?"

It was as if she had poked him with a live wire. He froze, his body stiffening with tension.

Liv gulped. By now she knew him well enough to anticipate his moods.

This was going to be bad.

She pulled her magic to her, determined to defend herself from the inevitable lashing out. But after a long tense moment, Kai just turned a page of the Grimoire.

"Not enough apparently," he said mildly. "Besides, I think you are the resident expert. It was your plan to harness her Expression to change the Merge spell, right? Good plan, by the way. The technique was a little crude, but the foundation was solid. I was impressed with your notes."

"Thanks," she muttered after an uncertain pause. She eyed him warily, checking his mood but that momentary tension seemed to have passed. He was back to studying the material before him. "So… do you plan to use it to break the Sleeping Curse on Jo? Or to merge with her while she's still in the Sleeping Curse?"

He heaved a long-suffering sigh and she was sure he wasn't going to respond to her. Then, to her surprise, he swivelled his chair to face her, his gaze keen.

"Well, it's the same fundamental problem you had, isn't it? A spell that should work in theory but drawing on a source of power that is logistically impossible."

"Expression isn't impossible."

"It is now that _she_ died with the power. She didn't carry it with her into the Prison World…" His voice trailed off.

Liv stared at him, at the faraway look on his face. "Kai?"

He came to slowly, a grin spreading across his face.

"You just got an idea?" she asked eagerly.

His gaze sharpened at her. "Maybe," he said, his voice cryptic but his eyes were dancing. "Although I don't appreciate being the one doing all the grunt work in this team assignment of ours. What exactly are you bringing to the table besides boarding and dubious meal tickets?"

Liv bristled at that. "My magic?"

Kai scoffed. "I can take that anytime I want, whether you like it or not. While I'm here, literally burning the midnight oil to crack this, you're either lazing your fat ass around this place or micro-managing me."

Liv blinked, completely at a loss for words, not sure whether to be infuriated - _fat ass?_ \- or relieved at his relative calm. Kai gave her a stern look, incongruous with his still twinkling eyes, then turned back to the table. He started writing into the pad in earnest, his pen flying over the paper.

He had got an idea, Liv thought, her hopes lifting despite herself.

She was still wondering what to say or if she should say anything at all. Her brother's mood swings were completely unpredictable and she certainly didn't want to unnecessarily evoke his ire…

When her phone buzzed again.

" _They just left. We're going NOW!"_

She sat up with a jerk, the urgency of the text gripping her, and then she froze, as she stared at Kai's back. He hadn't noticed anything untoward - he was still reading - but surely he would notice if she started getting dressed in a hurry, packed a magic bag and rushed out of the dorm before 6 o'clock in the morning? He would notice and he would ask questions.

She hadn't told Kai anything about Bonnie's new involvement with the Salvatores. Bonnie's confiding in her in the first place had caught Liv unawares, and then her first instinct was to tell Luke, because of their father's mandate on the Salvatores and Bonnie.

The two brothers had been wanted by the Gemini since that fateful trip to Nova Scotia. The role they had played in almost unleashing Silas, and in leading to the death of the coven's much sought-after Bennett bride was almost certain to guarantee their immediate execution. It was still a wonder to Liv that her father hadn't simply sent envoys to have the brothers killed. They won't have put up much of a fight against magical assassins. That they were spared was a mystery. Similar to the mystery of why Katherine Pierce was allowed to keep her life - and their secrets - after she returned from the Prison World.

What was not a mystery was Joshua Parker's clear instructions on what to do if the Salvatores ever tried to approach Bonnie again.

But it was one thing to tell Luke about the Salvatores and what amounted to Gemini business - it was another thing to tell Kai. It didn't concern him … that Liv was aware of.

 _Although Kai tends to have a strange reaction whenever I bring up Bonnie or Bennetts…_

Making up her mind to hold her peace, Liv got up slowly, and started gathering her things as sedately as possible.

Kai didn't once pause his rapid writing. Liv kept glancing over her shoulder as she crouched in front of the closet, discreetly packing her witch's bag. But, to all intents and purposes, he was so engrossed in what he was doing that he barely noticed her.

When she was done, she stood by the door, and hesitated, wondering what best to do. When she was going to class or errands, and he was in, she just left the room. If she said something now, won't it be suspicious?

She made up her mind, and turned to go.

"What kind of booty call needs a bag of magic tricks?"

She froze, her hand on the door handle. She deliberately stood with her back to him, not wanting him to read her face. "Won't you like to know?"

"Good point," he declared and she could hear the grimace in his voice. "Make yourself available this evening. We might need to do some travelling."

That sounded nebulous. "Where?"

"I'm still working that out," he muttered, sounding distracted. "Get lost, Liv and let me concentrate here, will you?"

As she turned to slam the door shut, she gave his back the finger.

* * *

"Anyone want to explain why the sudden change of plans?"

Liv Parker was the last to turn up. The other three were already waiting in Bonnie's car, parked in the lot of a rather ritzy apartment building. The car had been glamoured into a service van.

"Bonnie's trigger went off," Melissa explained. "The vamps' apartment is empty now, so we can check it out."

Liv gave Bonnie a sharp look. "You came in here by yourself to set a trigger? What if they had seen you?"

"We set the trigger," Faye replied. "Bonnie just directed the magic. Obviously, the Salvatores have no idea who we are but they'd have recognized Bonnie at once. She spiked it with an eavesdropping spell so we know that they'll be out for some time. Hunting."

Liv looked grudgingly impressed.

Now complete, the witches did another glamour spell to change their varying outfits into generic tech service uniforms.

It had been Faye's idea.

"Team of four women?" Liz muttered. "Rather forward-thinking tech company."

"Refuge in audacity," Faye insisted, as she led the way into the building.

Liz blinked at the back of her head, then turned to catch Bonnie's eyes. The two shared identical exasperated looks before they followed the tall brunette.

It was almost like good old times, working with these three, Bonnie thought. She even felt a return of the old rapport with Liv. They made their way through the building without drawing attention to themselves. Apparently, Faye was onto something after all.

The Salvatores had let out the apartment on the top floor. It was obviously the most expensive lease in the building and Bonnie wondered skeptically, if the Salvatores were paying a dime for it.

Melissa put her tin of sage at the inner threshold of the front door.

" _Phaesmotos Cochlea,_ " Bonnie murmured, touching her ear. The other girls whispered in turn, and after a pause, thoughts flooded Bonnie's head.

 _Eww, this place reeks..._

 _In and out, they won't ever know…_

 _He'd better be on to something concrete…_

" _Hush,_ " Bonnie said, trying with effort to filter and focus her own thoughts. " _We can't flood the stream with everything that enters our heads. We need to focus._ "

There was a chorus of _Sorrys_ then the girls separated to go search the rooms.

There was no spell to find what Bonnie was looking for. She barely knew _what_ she was looking for. She vaguely imagined a police report, contained in either a flash drive, or a manilla folder. She made a beeline for the main bedroom, and started to thoroughly rifle through the sparse luggage in the closet, all the while ignoring the smell and general sense of dread from being here.

" _Ewww!_ "

" _Faye!_ "

" _I can't help it. What is that smell?"_

It really was dreadful, Bonnie agreed but there was nothing to be done about it. It was a vampire's den after all.

She found what she was looking for. It was tucked into one of the numerous cupboards in the closet. A manilla folder, just like she suspected. The vampires hadn't bothered hiding it, clearly not expecting to be raided.

 _Case #C200409-721A_

Hopkins, R.

Bonnie stared at the letters on the cover, her heart slamming in her chest. Now that she held the evidence in her hands, the reality was inescapable.

There really was something wrong about the way her father died.

" _Any luck, guys?_ " That was Liv's voice.

" _Nothing from me…_ "

Bonnie shook herself mentally, sealing her spiralling emotions for the moment, and was starting to say: " _I have it. Come to the bedroom._ "

Liv and Faye got there just as Bonnie finished laying out the sheets of paper on the bed. She took out her camera and started snapping.

"Copies?" Faye wondered. "Why not grab the originals?"

"They'll miss them," Bonnie replied. "Remember this is a quick move-in and move-out. I don't want to show my hand before I need to."

She worked quickly, and was just packing the folder back, when Liv looked around.

"Where's Melissa?"

Bonnie's head snapped up; and she and the other two exchanged alarmed glances.

" _Melissa?_ "

" _I'm fine. I'm trying to find what's causing that smell…_ "

Bonnie rolled her eyes as she put the manilla folder back in its place.

" _Be fast, we're almost done…_ "

" _ARRRGH!"_

The last was not a mental thought but an actual scream. Bonnie, Faye and Liv ran in the direction of Melissa's scream and found the petite girl throwing up in the bathroom. The sunk tub was filled with blood … and an exsanguinated corpse.

' _Follow the blood.'_

It had once been a young girl, probably their own age, but it was hard to tell from all the bloating.

Bonnie stifled a horrified shriek. She fought down the bile that rose in her throat - she'd have thrown up too if Melissa wasn't already crouched over the toilet. With a cry, she flung out her hand and the tub obliterated, blood, flesh and porcelain turning into a pile of ash.

"Woah!" Faye said.

Bonnie looked at her and Liv. Both girls were green.

"They'll know witches were here when they get back," Liv pointed out.

"Let them," Bonnie snarled.

With furious steps, she walked out of the room. The other three exchanged glances - Melissa had got to her feet, and wiped her face - and followed.

They marched through the living area which had been upturned during the search.

"Shouldn't we…?" Liv gestured at the mess, trying to suggest that they clean up.

"No," Bonnie hissed.

They were almost at the door when they sensed it - the stench of decay and cold suddenly got stronger.

The four exchanged alarmed glances. "One of them is here," Liv hissed.

"What do we do, Bon?" Melissa asked quietly. Even though she was still green, she was already rolling up her sleeves and flexing her wrists.

Bonnie nodded in approval. "An aneurysm and a barrier spell. Liv, you take point. Faye and Melissa..."

Faye brushed past her. "Come on, Bon. I thought the whole plan was a quick move-in-and-move-out, ruffling very few feathers? You want to show your hand already?"

"I don't give a damn about that anymore," Bonnie snapped. "I should have killed these guys a long time ago."

"We're not killing anybody," Liv said quickly.

"Oh, they'll definitely die," Faye said grimly. "But let's not kill them before you've got everything you need from them. Think about it for a minute."

She spoke earnestly and after a moment, the hot rage that had filled Bonnie at the sight of that body, left like so much decaying trash in the water, faded somewhat. Faye was right. She hadn't wanted to show her hand so soon.

Faye's plan was simple enough - the other three hide behind the door, the vampires step in, and Faye simultaneously distract them and talk her way out of the situation, while the others sneak out through the spelled wall.

Bonnie, Liv and Melissa got into position. Faye stood in front of the door, cracking her knuckles. At the last possible moment, she extinguished the sage and pocketed it.

Stefan Salvatore stepped in.

* * *

Stefan started at the sight of the tall, dark-haired stranger in front of him.

"Excuse me?" he muttered, looking around. "Am I in the wrong apartment?" _And why was I caught unawares? She's human. I can hear a heartbeat. I can smell her blood. NOW. But surely if she had been in here all this while, I would have heard or smelt her long before I entered the room?_

"Comcast," she said curtly. "We fixed the bad cable." She waved a toolbox in his face.

"We?" he asked, slowly.

"My team have already moved." She whipped out a form from her box. "Didn't expect to meet anyone at home so if you'll just sign here, sir…"

He glanced at the form, back at her. "Hey, don't I know you from somewhere?"

She frowned, pushed the form at him. "Don't think so, sir. The form?"

He stretched his hand to take it, but grabbed her wrist instead. In one quick movement, he had snapped it. As she screamed, falling to her knees, he roared. "Who the hell are you?"

She looked up, tears running down her cheeks, and her hand went up as if in pleading… and a sudden force slammed into him, throwing him against the wall. Pain exploded from his tail bone to his spine when he made impact; and he distinctly felt something break.

"Now you know," she snarled, rising to her feet, cradling her broken wrist.

But he had already healed and was on his feet, charging at her - only to fall to his knees as an aneurysm hit him. He could barely hear past the pain of blood vessels tearing and healing with equal violence in his brain, so he didn't know if he imagined the sound of voices chanting in the air above him, the whistling of wind through the air-tight room. Then he felt hands gripping his hair, pulling back his neck. He didn't have the strength to even moan a protest before a blade slit his throat.

* * *

"I wanted him dead-dead," Faye growled. "Why didn't you let me stake him?"

The question was for Liv Parker, who eyed the other tall witch warily.

"Can you keep your voice down?" she hissed. "We're in a library and you're talking about killing people?"

"Sage, remember?" Melissa said testily as she peered hard at the laptop screen in front of her.

Beside her, Bonnie didn't even raise her head from her own screen, the entire conversation background noise to her.

The four witches had moved to the library after leaving the Salvatores's building and un-glamouring themselves. They had been poring through Bonnie's photos for the past few hours. They had hacked into the Mystic Falls Sheriff's database, and the Medical Examiner's records and were cross-checking information.

"Weren't you the one telling Bonnie not to kill them?" Liv hissed now.

"That was before he broke my wrist when I was trying to give him an easy way out!"

"Shhhh!" Melissa snapped, raising her head. "If all you two are going to do here is attack each other while Bonnie is…" She cocked her head in Bonnie's direction.

The other two fell silent, ashamed as they eyed their friend. As they uncovered more and more of the elaborate layers that had been used to bury the true cause of Rudy Hopkins's death, his daughter had grown more and more silent, her face paling, her eyes turning dull, her spirit wilting before their eyes.

Everything had been covered up. The first officer on the scene's report. The eyewitness testimony. The medical examiner's report.

But the most horrifying thing they had discovered was what had happened to his body.

For nine years, Bonnie had thought she, her mother, and her grandmother had buried her father in Mystic Falls after his viewing in an open casket. But the truth was that Rudy Hopkins's corpse had been incinerated to destroy all evidence of his death; and the body that had been buried had been the glamour of a John Doe.

"Bonnie," Faye asked softly. "Are you OK?"

"Of course, she's not OK," Liv snapped. "She just found out that her father was murdered and his death was covered up in a large-scale conspiracy. What the hell kind of stupid question is that?"

If looks could kill, Faye would probably have murdered the blonde. "Who the hell are you calling…"

Melissa turned on them in fury. "Shut up, both of you!"

"What I don't understand is" - and they all fell silent when Bonnie spoke, her voice dull and scratchy - "why go through so much trouble? Daddy wasn't… anything, really. He wasn't a witch. He wasn't a doppelganger. I can understand some stray vampire murdering him. I mean, it's obvious, isn't it? The bite marks, the staged accident… He was killed by a vampire who had been lying on the road, waiting for him to hit the brakes, come out to help and then …" Her voice trailed off, and tears rushed down her cheeks.

Melissa put an arm around her shoulder. "Bonnie, it's OK… it's OK."

"No, it's not!" Bonnie snapped, wiping her face angrily. "It's not OK. I didn't know it when I was a kid, but I know now that Vampires killed people in Mystic Falls all the time. The Sheriff's department called them 'random animal attacks' and buried the evidence. But not like this… Not to this extent. Burning his body... _replacing_ his body... They don't burn corpses of 'random animal attacks'. They just pay the undertaker to surgically disguise the bite marks. This is… this is large-scale. All these people… involved in covering up my father's death?"

"They might have been compelled," Liv suggested. All eyes turned to her and she shrugged. "That makes more sense than everyone being in on it. And if the records were sealed by the old Sheriff, then Liz Forbes only found out when she took his office."

"Vampires don't clean up their own messes," Bonnie said hoarsely.

Liv shrugged again. "They usually don't but in this case…" She cut off speaking to pull her phone out of her coat. She frowned at whatever she was reading on it. "Shit."

"Everything OK?" Melissa asked.

"Yeah," Liv muttered. "I'm just late to… meet with someone." She got to her feet abruptly. "I… I have to go. Bye." She had already taken a few steps away when she turned around and looked straight at Bonnie. "Hang in there."

Then she left.

* * *

She found him in the lot, watching the library with an inscrutable look in his face that morphed into irritation when he saw her.

"Took you long enough," Kai muttered. "Did you forget our appointment?"

"I'm sorry," Liv stammered as she hastened to meet him in the shadows of the library parking lot. "I was…" Her voice trailed off.

"Yada yada yada, spare me the minutiae of your college experience. I need your car."

She was already handing them over, when she hesitated, suspicion streaking across her face. "What's going on? Is this about Jo and the Spell? What are you going to-?"

He scoffed, and with a sudden flick of his wrist, her keys had zapped from her hand to his own. He turned to walk towards the car.

"Wait- Kai! Kai!" she yelled. "Where are you- How the hell do I get back to my dorm?"

"Not my problem," he called back. "And keep your voice down if you don't want the whole campus to know who I am."

That shut her up. She fell silent and watched with powerless rage as he got into her car and drove off.

There was nothing left for it but to go to the library and ask the other three for a ride. Bonnie would wonder what happened to her urgent appointment - what happened to her car. A story about sudden car trouble and triple AAA towing it away, should be convincing enough.

She was just pushing through the double doors when she felt a familiar presence looming behind her.

A hand gripped her elbow hard.

She whirled in surprise to see her twin brother's grim face glaring at her.

"You and I need to talk, Olivia."

* * *

Faye and Melissa wanted to leave. Bonnie could tell from the way they kept looking at each other over her head, and dropping hints about picking this up tomorrow.

"Did Caroline blow up your phone too?" Faye asked with a nervous chuckle. "How many appointments did we have lined up for today again?"

"No idea," Melissa said quickly. "But we'd better go in early so that we can be prepared for her tomorrow. You know she'll double our schedule to make up for 'slacking off'." She gave Bonnie an uneasy glance.

Bonnie sighed, and rubbed her eyes tiredly. She had stopped crying almost as soon as she started. Not that the grief from this had passed already. Oh no. But witch or not, she was only human. There was only so much her emotional system could process at once.

"You guys can go. I'll be fine on my own."

At once the two girls protested. "No, we won't leave you by yourself at a time like this!"

Bonnie raised her hand tiredly, warding them off. "Please go. I actually need… I need a moment to myself, if you don't mind."

They exchanged guilty glances now.

"If you're sure…" Faye asked, and to her credit, she sounded completely sincere.

"I'm sure," Bonnie said and even managed a tired sigh.

They left and she was alone in the library, going over her photos and the records they had dug up, checking the original, authentic information against the doctored ones on file, and trying to find a pattern, any pattern.

* * *

" _Jigsaw puzzles are your jam, huh?" Kai asked._

 _He found her at the pool, sitting under an umbrella in a bikini, sipping a drink that Katherine had mixed and trying to pretend that this was just another summer pool party at one of the mansions in the upper scale part of Mystic Falls._

" _I guess," Bonnie said, nervously, trying not to stare too hard at the broad chest on display inches away from her. She couldn't help sneaking glances though, and everytime she did, she felt a little more light-headed. He had pulled off his shirt as soon as he stepped into the pool yard, and she hadn't been able to look him in the face since then._

 _The bikini she had on was the most modest thing she could find in the shops in town. Compared to what Katherine was wearing as the vampire cut through the pool, Bonnie was sure she looked positively prudish._

 _But the way Kai's eyes kept sweeping over her exposed skin made her feel like if she might as well have been naked._

" _I like the challenge. I like figuring things out," she muttered, keeping her eyes on the paper before her._

 _He came closer, close enough that she could smell him - he smelt of sun and pork rinds; close enough that she was sure he could hear the rush of blood roaring through her ears, feel the way his presence was affecting her._

" _So do I," he murmured._

 _She looked up then, and wished she hadn't. His gray-blue gaze was searing into her. "I like challenges, too." He lifted a finger to brush against one of her curls. She was completely frozen, unable to move or breathe. "I like figuring things out."_

* * *

Bonnie snapped out of that memory abruptly and immediately felt her face heat up with rage.

What was wrong with her? How could she be thinking about _him_ in the middle of discovering _this_?

But she couldn't help it. Couldn't help that after Mystic Falls, he was never far from her mind. Couldn't help that that kiss was not far from her thoughts, that Damon's revelation to her was almost - and it made her sick to think this but it was true - a relief to her because it distracted her from everything Kai Parker.

Kissing Kai Parker.

Volunteering to kill Kai Parker.

Wishing she could confide this devastating discovery to Kai Parker.

 _You're crazy, Bonnie Bennett._ She told herself now.

She shook herself mentally, shook out those nefarious thoughts of an impossible relationship with a madman, and tried to refocus on what was important right now. Getting to the truth of her father's death. Finding out who was responsible, why and…

... ending that person.

A sudden stench assailed her nostrils. Blood. Gore. Cold death.

Bonnie was halfway out of her seat when they materialised before her. They had moved so fast that it was as if they had appeared out of thin air.

"Hello, Bonnie," Stefan Salvatore said grimly.

His brother's smile was a snarl. "Thanks for cleaning up the flat today."

Bonnie threw aneurysms at them.

They flinched - then stopped. They blinked at her. Then eyed each other.

"I think that tickled a little, didn't it, Stefan?" Damon mused.

Her heart slammed in her chest as fear gripped Bonnie and she turned to run.

Only to slam into Caroline Forbes, her best friend. "Bonnie…"

"Caroline," Bonnie gasped. "Get out of my way before I hurt you."

Caroline smiled sadly. "You can't hurt us, Bonnie. Not for another twelve hours at least. We swallowed witchbane."

Surrounded on all sides by three vampires who were immune to her powers, Bonnie collapsed into her seat in defeat.

"See guys?" Damon drawled, plopping himself into the seat that Melissa had vacated. "I told you that she can be reasoned with."

Bonnie threw Caroline a long look, and filled it with all the sense of betrayal that she felt at that moment.

Caroline's eyes shone. "Bonnie, I swear, if you'll just listen to us…"

Bonnie cut her gaze away, unable to bear to stare at her supposed friend's face for one more moment.

She looked Stefan Salvatore right in the eye and asked her question bluntly. "What do you want from me now?"

* * *

A/N: Thank you to everyone who's ever reviewed or sent me messages about this story. This update is entirely due to your encouragement and motivation. I love you all!


	11. Dark Knight

_**A/N** : Had to change the rating after this chapter. _

* * *

**11**

 **Dark Knight**

Stefan's drove the red sportscar fast, far faster than Bonnie felt comfortable with. But nothing in this scenario was intended for Bonnie's comfort.

Caroline rode shotgun. She had tried to sit next to Bonnie at the backseat but when Bonnie tried to literally bite her, she moved to the front, having the audacity to look hurt.

That left Damon, who gave her a fangy grin as he entered the car. "Go ahead, witchling. Just remember I bite back."

The back-seat was roomy, but you couldn't tell from the way he pushed against her, all but squeezing her into a corner.

"Damon, stop," Stefan said, glaring at them from his mirror.

"What?" Damon retorted, not taking his eyes off Bonnie as he wrapped a finger through a curl of her hair.

"Stop it, Damon," Caroline said weakly. She feared the older Salvatore as much as she hated him.

Or Bonnie thought she did. At this moment, she wasn't sure of anything where her ex-friend was concerned.

As Bonnie turned her face to the glass, so that she won't have to look at Damon's leering face, she caught Caroline's guilty gaze and gave her friend a look of pure hate.

"Or what, Blondie?" Damon snorted, shifting even closer to Bonnie.

"Or I won't help you with whatever you have planned," Bonnie hissed, still not looking at him.

"Oh, you will," Damon insisted, "because not knowing the truth about your father will eat you alive."

Bonnie whirled on him, not minding that they were almost nose to nose. "What do you know?"

He leered. "That would be telling, won't it? Information isn't free."

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, opened them. "What do you want?"

"Now, we're talking."

But he didn't say anything, just kept smiling and inching closer to her.

"Well?" she snapped, wishing with everything in her that she could use her magic to burn off his face.

"All in good time." He played with her hair some more. "Let's get to our apartment. Get you more comfortable…"

"Stop it, Damon!" Caroline snapped. "I mean it."

"You shut up," Bonnie hissed. "You traitor."

"Bonnie," Caroline said weakly.

"I can't believe you. I can't believe you!"

"You'll understand soon, OK? Once you hear the whole story, you'll…"

"In your dreams. We're finished, Care. Do you understand me? We're done."

Caroline burst into tears. Stefan shot Bonnie an angry glare. "Don't be unreasonable, Bonnie."

"You're just lucky you're on witchbane. I'd kill you second, right after my ex-friend in the front."

Caroline sobbed harder. Stefan growled under his breath.

"Oh shut your yakking!" Damon groused. "Or let's stop and get you girls some mud so that this'll really be interesting."

Bonnie snarled at him and he just laughed. "Oooh, who knew that Little Miss Perfect Witch had so much fire?" he leaned even nearer. She was pressed so tightly against the door that she was worried it might give under her weight.

"What's that?" Stefan asked suddenly.

The mounting tension in the car paused as everyone's attention turned to the windscreen. Bonnie wasn't sure, but it looked like there was something on the road.

"Is that a person lying there?" Stefan asked.

"Oh my god," Caroline sniffled. "I think it's an accident. See the car in front?"

"Or some copy-cat borrowing our own 'wait on the road for suckers' technique," Damon said darkly. "Drive over it, Stefan." When Stefan slowed down instead. He pushed away from Bonnie to put his head between the front seats. "Drive over it, I say!"

"Shut up, Damon," Stefan snapped as he deliberately pulled the car onto the shoulder and stopped. He unstrapped his seatbelt and got out.

Damon growled under his breath. In the front, Caroline was still sniffling.

Bonnie ignored both of them, as she looked around her, wondering if she'd have a chance if she used magic to open her seat door then made a break for it. The stretch of road passed through the woods. She could head into the heart of it. The witchbane that made the vampires immune to her - also impaired their magical powers. They didn't super-speed or strength, and their lapus lazuli daylight rings would have no effect on them. Indeed, ingesting too much witchbane - or ingesting it too frequently - would prove fatal to all magical creatures eventually.

If she moved fast, she might just get away.

But did she want to? As much as she hated this whole situation, Damon had a point - she needed to know what happened to her father and if this was the only way…

Her eyes glanced despairingly at the road, idly following Stefan's form as he approached the figure on the granite. She frowned, staring at it. It looked oddly familiar. So did the car up front. In fact, she realized, as she scanned her surroundings again, this whole stretch of road seemed oddly familiar…

"Where is this place?" she asked.

"Someroad, Virginia," Damon drawled.

"No, I mean it. Where is this place?"

Caroline sniffed, looked around - then her breath caught. "Oh, Bonnie!"

"You monsters brought me here on purpose, didn't you?" Bonnie cried, tears filling her eyes.

"What's going on?" Damon snapped. He turned to Caroline. "What's wrong with her?"

"This is where her Dad died, you bastard!"

Bonnie wiped at her cheeks, angrily. "Don't tell me you didn't know."

"I didn't know that! I'm not the one who decided to stop the car and play the Good Samaritan in the middle of a witch-napping. What the hell is Stefan doing… _Where the hell is my brother?_ "

And everyone in the car fell suddenly, shockingly silent - as they realized that he was nowhere in sight. In the minutes, they'd been distracted by Bonnie's realization of their location, Stefan had vanished.

The body on the road was gone, too.

Caroline gasped.

Damon swore. "I said it, didn't I? What the frigging hell!"

He reached for the handle of the door, then pausing, he turned warning eyes to Bonnie and Caroline in turn. "If both of you are not still here when I get back, I swear to…" He didn't finish but the threat in his face was clear. He slammed out of the car and started moving towards the spot where the body had laid.

"Caroline, the keys are in the car. Let's get out of here," Bonnie said urgently.

Caroline turned hopeless eyes to Bonnie. "I can't leave Stefan."

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Bonnie exploded. "It's bad enough that you're working with them against me - that you told them about my father and let them use it against me - but now, you won't even save yourself?"

"Stefan is fine," Caroline said nervously, conveniently ignoring everything else Bonnie said. She looked around the windows anxiously. Damon was standing in the middle of the road, looking around just as worriedly. "You'll see…"

Bonnie glared at the side of her friend's face. Then with a whispered spell, she sprang her door open and took off.

"Bonnie! Bonnie, stop!"

Bonnie didn't. She had plunged into the woods and now ran as fast as she could. Behind her, she could hear Caroline's voice - followed by Damon's. They might not have super-speed at the moment - but they still had longer legs and greater physical strength than her slight body. Her best chance was to lose them by twists and turns.

For a while, she thought she did, their voices fading behind her. She slowed down, exhaustion catching up with her, and tried to reach for her phone in her back pocket.

Then she heard a scream - a positively blood-curdling scream.

"Caroline!" Bonnie whispered under her breath, and she stopped, frozen. Her heart was pounding. Caroline sounded scared out of her mind. Had Damon done something to her? Or had - she remembered the vaguely familiar figure on the road - something else happened to her?

Caroline screamed again - and suddenly fell silent.

Bonnie started running in earnest. Whatever had got Caroline must have been the same thing that took Stefan. The Salvatore brothers, she could deal with. The effects of witchbane were not permanent; and soon she would be able to defend herself against them. But this - she had no idea what this was. It flashed through her mind briefly that with her magic, and Caroline's lack of powers, Bonnie could try to help. But that was insane. She'd be walking into danger herself and for what? Her friend who had betrayed her for the sake of her on-again off-again shag?

And now as her feet pounded, she was hearing all sorts of noises. Sounds of struggling, groans and blows. Sounds of being dragged along the ground. Fire? Could she smell smoke?

Her heart was pounding, her sides were aching as she reached a clearing - when a hand flung out, grabbing her wrist and then she was being lifted clear off the ground and yanked backwards into a tall, hard body.

Bonnie screamed - but it was muffled by a warm palm on her mouth. She tried to bite it, and she heard a warm chuckle in her ear that made her freeze.

She twisted in the grip - her captor let her - and she choked as she looked up to see the face of Kai Parker.

"Fancy meeting you here," he said, his eyes dancing with mischief.

She stared at him, wide-eyed, heart pounding from a mixture of panic, exhaustion and … excitement.

"Gonna scream if I let go? Devil you know and all that?"

She shook her head.

He removed his hand. He still had a firm grip on her, and now with his arms wrapped around her back, he walked backwards into the thick of the woods, dragging her with him.

"It was you on the road, wasn't it? What did you do to Stefan?"

He smirked. "Now that would be telling."

"And Caroline? Damon?"

He didn't answer but his smirk broadened.

"What did you do to Caroline?" Bonnie insisted.

"Blondie's alive… for now. Why you care, I don't know."

"I care because I don't like seeing people get hurt."

"Says the girl who sucker-punched me a few days ago." His smirk twisted into a snarl as he yanked her body hard against his. She could feel his heat, smell his scent, feel the warmth of his breath wash against her face. "Tell me, Bon, do you always kiss and kill?"

"Please let me go, Kai," she whispered, shaking - but not completely from fear.

His hand rose up to stroke her curls - his other arm still firmly holding her against him - and Bonnie told herself that she found the gesture as frightening and invasive as it had been a short while ago from another man.

"I saved your life," he murmured, his fingers tightening in her hair enough to sting her scalp. "Don't I get a thank you?" His dark eyes dropped to her mouth.

Her breath caught. Involuntarily, her tongue came out to moisten her lips.

He groaned and bent low, but his mouth only brushed against her cheek.

She whimpered. "Please." But what she was begging for, she didn't know. His mouth was so near hers. She turned her face to catch it, but he ducked, his lips landing on her other cheek. "Please, Kai."

"I want you to beg," he murmured against her skin, tasting the velvety softness from her cheek to the back of her ear. "I want you to ache, and twist and want for me."

 _I do_ , she sobbed in her mind but she said nothing, panting in earnest now.

The hand in her hair slipped out, palming the back of her head, then sliding down her back, slipping forward at her chest to palm her breast - she moaned out loud at that and he chuckled darkly - then down her waist, and curving around her ass. He yanked her to him again, and she felt him, hard and ready for her.

Her hands grabbed his belt, tugging. She hadn't even realized that her arms were free until now. But now, there was no thought of escape in her head, she wanted him too much.

"What do you want, Bonnie?" he murmured against her throat, his teeth nibbling, then soothing with his tongue. His hand had gone from caressing her butt, to sliding under her waist band. There was no belt for him to deal with and before she realized it, his fingers were in her panties.

 _Oh god_. "Kai, please," she cried, jerking hard against him. His fingers were working their magic - their familiar wonderful magic - in her. Her head dropped on his shoulder, giving up on getting that kiss, as she rocked into his hand, tears stinging the back of her eyes.

His other hand slid from her back to her ass, pulling her so that she hopped on him, her legs wrapping around his waist. Her arms went around his shoulders, feeling his hard muscles working. He turned around and her back was against a tree, his weight crushing her after he raised her higher.

She didn't mind. Not when his fingers were strumming her like his favorite instrument, her thighs dripping while his teeth pulled down the flimsy strap of her blouse, so that he could tongue her through her bra.

"It … hooks… in the front," she gasped. She pushed into his face, not thinking of anything again - the vampires, her father, the coven, the blood on his hands - not thinking of anything beyond just how badly she needed this man's mouth, hands, cock in and on her. His whole body was moving against hers, and it was not enough to feel him through his cotton shirt. She reached for the hem, and wrapped her arms around the smooth skin underneath, revelling in the feel of his muscles moving against her palms.

He groaned around her nipple, then his mouth let her go - making her cry at the loss and the cool wet air - before travelling to dip into her cleavage. "I know," he breathed, then moved to the next.

She moaned. He was doing this on purpose, driving her to the edge but on his own terms. She was jerking against his hand desperately now, afraid that he would stop - he would pull back and leave her frustrated. The pressure in her core was growing, darkness creeping into the corners of her eyes, her magic beating against her skin, taut and ready, on the edge of losing control.

"Come for me, Bonnie," he whispered

 _Yes!_ And it happened, her magic lashing free as her entire body, soul and mind peaked and she collapsed, weak and limp in his arms.

"Oh god," he moaned, his hands working his belt and she helped him, eagerly; she gasped as he shredded her panties like paper, and then he was inside her, filling her, groaning her name against her skin, and she rode that crescendo again as he fell apart in her arms.

For a long moment, they just held each other, breathing deeply. Then his arms loosened, and she slid off that tree, now feeling the pain of a thousand, tiny bruises she must surely have now. He adjusted his jeans while she put her clothes back together, sneaking glances at him but unable to look at him directly.

She still wanted him to kiss her.

She still wanted to kill him.

When they were done, they stared at each other. The smirk on his face had gone - replaced by a twisted helplessness that mirrored her soul.

She looked away first. After a moment, he took her elbow and led her out of the woods. They walked silently until she got to Stefan Salvatore's car. It was empty.

"Where are they?" she whispered, speaking for the first time since… everything.

"What do you care?" he retorted, sounding just as before. She yelped as he all but shoved her into the driver's seat.

The keys were still in the ignition.

"Drive."

"I care about Caroline," she insisted, looking up at him. "Don't hurt her."

"I already hurt her," he said darkly. When Bonnie gasped, he rolled his eyes. "She'll wake up with a horrible headache. If the witchbane's worn off, her daylight ring will work. If not, then she'll get a little sunburnt - she's lying in the thickest part of the woods. Now… _drive_."

Bonnie wanted to ask him about the Salvatore brothers - but there was a darkness in his eyes that told her not to dare.

She turned the ignition - then paused again.

"We're going to kill you," she said softly. "The coven. We're going to catch you and destroy you."

His face twisted into a grin that made her shiver, and press her knees together at the same time.

 _What was wrong with her?_

"Careful, Bonnie. I might begin to think you actually care."

"I'm not warning you!" she hissed.

"Aren't you?" he scoffed.

She gave him one last poisonous look, before she stepped on the gas and the little red sportscar flew down the road that had taken her father's life.

All the way to campus, her mind replayed the last moments in the wood over and over again. She felt satiated. She wanted him again. She was furious he hadn't kissed her. She was ashamed of herself. She wished she had seized the chance to kill him. She wondered when they'd do it again. She felt and thought and wished for a myriad of conflicting things.

The one thing that never even occurred to her was regret. Given the chance, she'd do it all over again.

She was walking into her dorm room when it hit her. The car that had been parked on the road, beside the 'body'.

She recognised it.

* * *

" _Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water…"_

Stefan woke up with his mouth tasting of burnt clover. For a confused moment, he wondered if he had passed out after dosing himself with witchbane - then it hit him. Someone had just force fed him some more. He could feel the lack of strength in him.

His eyes flew open in panic.

He was tied to the foot of a tree. Above him, the dark green light filtered down from the thick overcast. He was just within the edge of a cleared patch of wood, a foot or so from where the sunlight shone brightly on the incongruous sight before him a jeans-clad, dark-haired man in his mid-twenties fetching a pail of water and humming a nursery rhyme.

" _Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after."_

He offered Stefan the wooden pail with a smile that positively screamed 'you're a sucker, if you fall for this'. Stefan stared into the clear water and shook his head.

"No, thanks and if you don't mind my asking, what the hell is going on?"

"You sure?" the guy asked, ignoring the question and staring into the pail, then shaking it so that the water splashed on the grass in what Stefan imagined was supposed to be a tempting way.

Stefan shook his head firmly.

"Good call. Probably isn't very hygienic." He flung the water into Stefan's face.

The cold shock drew out a shout from the vampire as the man laughed and laughed and laughed. And did Stefan imagine that his skin tingled a little?

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Stefan shouted

"Excellent," the maniac in front of him said between chuckles. "You're not frying so the witchsbane's kicked in again."

Stefan's heart thumped.

The other man must have read the fear on his face because he raised his hands in pacification. "Oh, don't worry. I gave you just a sip. Should last … give or take a couple of hours. Just a little longer than the time it will take that patch of sunlight in front of you to shift nearer and nearer and … well, let's hope it doesn't get to that. That's the whole point of the additional motivation."

What did that mean?

Suddenly it occurred to Stefan. "Where's Caroline? Where's my brother?"

"Blondie's hitch-hiking back to campus as we speak. And as for your older and not-so-wiser sibling… you almost drank him a few minutes ago…" The man shifted so that the well was in clear sight.

Stefan felt horror rise inside him. "You didn't… he isn't…"

"I suppose he drowned eventually in all that vervain. He's been waking up like clockwork, screaming his head off then drowning again."

"Why are you doing this?" Stefan shouted.

For the first time, the humour on the man's face shifted into something darker. "I don't like people touching my things." Then it shifted back into its manic humour. "Plus I need the truth about Nova Scotia, the quest for Expression - and what the heck - throw in Rudy Hopkins's death as a thank you to me for not killing the redundant Blondie."

"W… what?"

"I figured that either your life or your brother's should motivate you, and decided to cover both bases. Effective, right?"

Stefan shook his head slowly. "You are going to regret it."

The man chuckled. "I don't think so." He glanced at his watch. "Ooooh, ten more seconds. Let's get started, shall well?"

And just on cue, Damon started screaming.


	12. The Execution

**12**

 **The Execution**

The twins didn't bother with disguises. Each sporting a backpack of supplies, they strolled into the apartment building like if they owned it. In one hand, each carried a sharpened piece of wood, cloaked to be invisible to non-magic eyes. In the other hand, they carried nothing except their own power, charged to their fingertips with ready hexes.

They were going vampire-hunting.

They reached the Salvatores' door and with a whispered spell, Luke pushed it open, charging ahead while his sister stayed at the door, murmuring shield and defensive spells under her breath.

In a few moments, she stopped as she and her brother looked at each other in confusion.

"They're gone."

"Damon's Camaro was still in the lot when we scouted round," Luke pointed out. He gestured at the evidence of occupancy – a journal lying on the coffee table, shoes lined up by the door. "We must have just missed them."

Liv fidgeted by the doorway. "So… what do we do? We wait? Do a sweep and scorch before they're back?"

"That'll give us away, won't it?" Luke retorted, as he picked up the journal, flipped through the pages. "Our orders were clear. This was supposed to be a surprise attack."

"Well, the surprise is on us."

"And us, apparently."

The twins whirled around, magic at the ready, as the heavy barrier spell that had protected the sudden intruders lifted, to face –

Melissa, Faye.

And Bonnie.

Whose heart-shaped face was filled with betrayal at Liv.

* * *

Liv gulped. "Bonnie… look…"

"Save it," Bonnie snapped. "You told Luke after everything that you promised."

"I-"

"Liv did the right thing," Luke said, stepping forward with a stern yet compassionate look on his face. "The last time you got involved with these vampires, you… you died, Bonnie. Liv did what _you_ should have done and told me about it. Told the coven."

"I told Joshua about them the last time and he did nothing," Bonnie said bitterly. "So forgive me if I chose to take matters into my own hands."

"Well, that's all changed now. Father agrees with you. The Salvatores are a menace and we're here to put them down."

Bonnie should have been gratified. It was what she had always wanted.

So why did her instincts tell her not to trust a word out of Luke's smooth mouth?

She snapped a glance at Liv, and her suspicions grew. The other girl didn't meet Bonnie's gaze which was just as well. Bonnie turned around to look at -

No one else. It was just the twins on one side of the room, and Bonnie on the other side. Faye and Melissa were standing guard outside, having given the Gemini witches privacy to hash things out.

"Where's everyone else?"

Luke raised an eyebrow. "Everyone who?"

"You're on an assassination mission and it's just you two?"

Luke scoffed, his manner easy. "I think one of us would have been more than enough to handle two adolescent vamps."

"The play is always three witches for the kill. Two to chant, one to hex. Where's your third?"

The twins shared guilty glances. They all three knew who their third was supposed to be – she was standing right in front of them. For as long as Bonnie, Luke and Liv had been deemed skilled enough to carry out unsupervised missions, they had always been a team. As long as it was official Gemini business – and until recent events, even 'unofficial' business – they had worked together.

Now Bonnie wasn't sure if the twins looked guilty because they had deliberately pushed her out of this … or if it was something else.

She snapped another hard glance at Liv.

"We didn't ask you," Luke said finally, "because we knew this was personal for you."

"Damn right, it is!" Bonnie declared. "Do you know these two snatched me last night?"

" _What?_ " Luke exploded. Liv looked outraged. It clearly seemed to be news to them.

Bonnie watched them carefully, not in a hurry to assume anything. "Yes. They grabbed me from the library after you left, Liv. They had dosed themselves with witch-bane. I didn't have any choice but to go along with them."

"What did they want?"

Bonnie shrugged. "They were going to tell me the truth about my father's death in exchange for something. What that thing was, they never got round to telling me before I got away."

"But… they were dosed with witch-bane so… how did you do that?"

It was Liv who asked, her voice worried.

Bonnie hesitated. Images of a body lying on the road, strong arms around her waist, being lifted against a tree and fucked within an inch of her sanity hovered briefly in her mental vision – and was brusquely pushed away.

She shrugged, as casually as she could. "Before we got here, the Salvatores had a run-in with a rival group of vamps. Left the car to settle it. I saw an opening, took their car and drove like hell. I got Melissa and Faye to meet me at my dorm and take me to their hotel so the Salvatores couldn't trace the car to them. It's still parked outside the dorm."

Luke gave her a proud nod. "That was smart. Damon's Camaro is in the lot downstairs so they must have chased you to the dorm sometime in the night."

"It wasn't that old car he drives. It was some red sports-car. Stefan was driving."

He frowned. "Are you sure?"

"I don't know cars, Luke, but I can tell the difference between blue and red."

The twins exchanged glances.

"What is it?" Bonnie prompted.

"We thought we had just missed the Salvatores but from what you're telling me, they never got back after you escaped from them."

Bonnie's eyes widened. A certain Gemini siphon wasn't the only thing she was keeping away from the twins (one twin, at least; she still didn't know what Liv's play in this was). Bonnie was also deliberately keeping Caroline out of her narration of last night's events. As angry as she had felt towards her childhood friend last night – as angry as she still felt towards Caroline, truth be told, for everything – from lying about her father, to telling the Salvatores, to _kidnapping_ Bonnie… Bonnie wasn't angry enough to sign her death sentence. And that was almost certainly what putting Caroline in Gemini cross-hairs was going to amount to.

"Tell me about the rival vamps," Luke insisted.

Bonnie shook her head, a good way to avoid meeting his sharp, blue gaze. "I barely caught a glimpse of them. One… walked into the road, almost made us crash. He cursed them… They jumped out, started fighting. Another one joined in, I think. Or maybe it was only just the one, moving at vamp-speed? I don't know. I was too busy escaping to notice. They were too busy fighting to notice that I had got the car and was leaving."

Luke asked her for descriptions and Bonnie gave vague images of long-haired, leather-cloaked generic-as-they-come creatures of the night, playing it safe rather than going into details that would trip her up. All the while, she glanced at Liv, and several times caught Liv in the act of glancing back at her.

Those glances, and Liv's strange silence during this part of the conversation, convinced Bonnie even more than that car had.

Liv knew about Kai.

Liv was in contact with Kai.

And Liv was hiding this from the Gemini Coven.

When they were done, Luke heaved a sigh and gave the other two weary looks. "From what you say, they're probably dead and their bodies in ashes somewhere. Two witchbane-dosed versus one or two full-powered vamps? There's really only one outcome, isn't there?"

"We'll know for sure after we do a tracking spell," Bonnie countered. "You're the best in the business, Luke. Get to it."

She glanced again at Liv, and didn't miss the flash of alarm that crossed the other twin's face.

* * *

"How could you?" Melissa hissed at Liv, her voice low to not startle Bonnie and Luke doing the tracking spell in the corner of the living room.

Faye rolled her eyes and gave Liv a look of contempt. "Are you really surprised?"

Liv couldn't be bothered to respond with a mean glare. Her mind was spinning.

She could see his hand in this – her brother, she meant. Not the one that stood with his future wife, golden and good in his righteous. She meant the other, the opposite. Dark and evil in his devilishness.

She had spent hours with Luke last night, popping only briefly in her room to shower and change before they suited up for this morning's mission. There had been no sign of Kai's return. Her car was still gone. In the meanwhile, no calls, no messages. Concerned, she had activated the tracking app in her phone to find the whereabouts of her car. It was somewhere on the dirt trail between Whitmore and the inner town; had been there for hours. A dirt trail not unlike the one Bonnie described the Salvatore brothers driving her through.

But that was not what had pinged Liv's 'Kai alarm'. No, that was Bonnie.

She had never been a good liar. Never had to be, really. While Joshua had pushed his twins and future heirs to the brink of their limits, more of a task-master than a father, he had doted on his future Bennett daughter-in-law, and the rest of the coven had followed suit. Liv and Luke had learnt deception to survive. Bonnie only needed to bat her overlong lashes and she got everyone falling over their feet to please her.

So although Liv did not doubt that Bonnie had really been kidnapped by the Salvatores last night, it was patently obvious she was keeping some details back.

And between Bonnie's lies, and Kai's absence, and the weird vibes she got from her brother where Bonnie was concerned – Liv was sure that Bonnie was hiding news about Kai.

But why?

From everything Liv had been told, Kai had terrorized Bonnie in 1994. Was it possible that the fear he had instilled had taken such deep roots in Bonnie's psyche than even out of 1994, he had a hold over her? From her own experience Liv could believe it.

She stayed silent as Luke and Bonnie did the spell, and ignored the baleful glares that Melissa and Faye threw at her. When they were done, and they had a location, the witches prepared to move.

Liv didn't miss the look of apprehension on Bonnie's face.

"What do we do when we find them?" she asked Luke.

He looked startled. "We?

Bonnie rolled her eyes. "Of course, I'm coming."

"You don't have to-"

"Did you miss the part where I said they met up with other vampires? We don't know what numbers we're dealing with. Besides, I need to speak with them. Get information about my father."

Luke hesitated. "Bonnie," he said in the quiet voice that meant no good news was coming next. "Our orders were clear. We're to kill the Salvatores without discussion."

Bonnie exchanged frantic looks with her Circle friends. "Luke, I need them alive. I have to know what they know about my father."

"You can't trust the Salvatores, Bonnie. You know that."

"I'll take my chances."

"Our orders-"

"Luke, this is important to me. I need this… _please_." And Liv swallowed a snort at Bonnie's wide-eyed look of beseeching. How often had she seen that look growing up and known what soon followed? Utter capitulation.

Which was why Liv was completely taken aback when her brother looked torn – but resolved.

"I'm sorry, Bonnie. The Praetor's orders were crystal-clear. The Salvatores have to die."

* * *

"You're not really going to let them kill the vamps before we find out more, are you?" Faye asked as her car pealed rubber down the highway.

Naturally, Bonnie was riding back to the woods with Melissa and Faye while the twins followed in their own vehicle.

"Not if I can help it," Bonnie said, grimly.

She had never known she could feel this way about Luke. She and the older twin had always got along the best, the closest 'boy' friend she ever had. But it was all she could do back in the Salvatore's hotel suite not to hex him.

It was all very well for him. This was just another assignment. To Bonnie, this was a matter of literal life and death. Why was it so hard for him to see that? Luke was usually so understanding.

"Are you really going to defy your coven leader?" Melissa asked from the backseat, her voice hushed with concern.

Bonnie set her jaw. "He's not my leader." At Faye's gasp of surprise, she continued. "It's not my coven."

The engine of the car rumbled with her magic as they both sped towards their destination. She wasn't going to let Luke kill the Salvatores until she got what she wanted. It was three against two. She had never used magic against the twins outside a practice duel, but she knew that if it came to it, she could easily outmatch them. Between Luke's refusal to see reason and the secrets Bonnie knew Liv was hiding about Kai, she was this close to declaring war.

 _Bonnie, calm down,_ a little voice whispered in her head. _Luke is one of your dearest friend, the man you're going to marry in a matter of days now. Liv is the closest thing you'll ever have to a sister. They are not your enemies._

"Anyone who stands between me and finding out what happened to my father is an enemy right now," she whispered back.

"What was that?" Faye asked.

Bonnie glared at the road ahead of them, and willed the car to fly. "Nothing. Just keep driving."

* * *

The Chamberlain girl drove like a maniac. She must have had a police scanner in her car or was doing some speeding illusion because there was no way she could have moved at that speed and not got pulled over.

Luke was frantic by the time they pulled over to the highway, behind Bonnie's friend's car. "Come on, Liv," he snapped, as he jumped out the car. "We've wasted enough time already."

Liv glared at him as she jumped out after him. "Excuse a girl for needing a bathroom break. Now cloak us before your whinging exposes us."

She had had the good sense to get the co-ordinates of the vampires's location before they started driving, and that was how she confirmed what she already suspected – that Kai was involved in this. The vampires's location and the location of Liv's car were metres from each other. So Liv had had a bathroom emergency, during which she sent a bunch of frantic texts to Kai. He didn't reply, but after a few minutes – during which Luke all but cursed her out as he repeatedly came to the door to ask her to hurry – Liv checked her app and saw that her car was moving away from that spot.

Luke had floored the pedal, desperate to catch up with Bonnie and her friends, as suspicious of Bonnie's intentions as Liv was. No doubt he was still reeling from Bonnie's earlier fury. _Welcome to the club_ , Liv thought spitefully.

But there was no keeping up with Faye's crazy driving and Liv was sure that they had arrived minutes after Bonnie.

Luke bitched about it all the way through the woods, as they followed the tracking spell to its target.

"If we've messed this up because of you…"

"Might be a good thing if it'll make you finally own up to whatever's going on with you," Liv muttered.

Luke glared at her. "What does that mean?"

"You've always been a stickler for rules, but a short Q & A before an execution? What's the harm in that? What exactly were these mission parameters?"

"I told you everything last night," Luke said testily. "Father doesn't want the Salvatores in Bonnie's life again. She almost died the last time. Who knows what they'll drag her into this time around?"

"And Father got this epiphany in the space of 24 hours, when she was missing, presumed dead and he never bothered to hunt them down and kill them?"

"You ask Father when you get the chance."

Liv fell silent, knowing that was a challenge she couldn't take up anytime soon. Not when she was still unofficially in disgrace from her actions of last year.

Luke was ahead of her, and he rounded into the clearing and stopped so suddenly she walked into him.

"What the-"

"We got here too late as well," Faye's voice called out from ahead.

Liv walked around her shell-shocked still brother to look – and gasped.

She, Bonnie and Luke made the points of a triangle around the carcasses on the floor. The younger brother had been staked. His desiccated features were still recognizable. The older brother – well, Liv assumed it was the older brother. The truth was, that it was hard to recognize what was left of the other dead vampire. Had to understand exactly what how he had died, either. Some limbs had been scorched, exposed to the sun. Some had the flesh peeled back, like if they had soaked in vervain. A fleshy eyeball stood a few inches from the well, its lid-less gaze staring up into the sky.

Liv felt her stomach turn, and looked away. She caught sight of Melissa near the edge of the woods, hurling. The sight only made Liv more nauseous and she looked away, turning until her eyes landed on Bonnie, at the look of utter blankness on her face.

For the first time since she had met the younger girl, Liv had no idea what Bonnie was thinking.

"Who did this?" Luke whispered, staring down at the pink-spotted skull that must have once been inside Damon Salvatore's head.

Bonnie turned her head, returned Liv's gaze with a stark one of her own.

"I have no idea."


End file.
